Reflection
Inspiration for When The Streetlights Turn On
When writing the collection of short stories When The Streetlights Turn On, I wanted to capture the essence of horror movies throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These films centered around teenagers who were up to no good in quaint small towns like my own. I wanted to breath new life into the timeless slasher story, one with a masked killer and good-old fashion revenge. My whole life I have loved horror literature and films, and by writing these stories I brought them to life in my own small town.
The story starts off with two teens running from the high school football team and meeting The Man by the Fire. This part of the story was supposed to call out the high school jock cliche, as the bullies were all wearing “green and gold letterman jackets.” This was meant to bring the reader into the fictitious world, and play with high school stereotypes. The Man by the Fire was inspired by the 90s TV show Are You Afraid of The Dark? In this show, a group of teenagers told scary stories around a campfire, and I put my own spin on this.
The story The Broken Bicycle, also has many connections to the horror cinematic universe as well as my own life. The story takes place in and around the town of Aldershot, which is where I live and used to go to high school. I wanted my stories to feel more authentic, so I based the characters in the story (loosely) on my friends. The sewer that is described in the story is a real place in my neighborhood, and I think this added to the authenticity of the story.
In the story The Waving Man, I took inspiration from the 1981 horror classic Evil Dead. By doing this, I played with the “cabin in the woods” trope, with my own sinister spin. Like the other stories, I named the teens after characters from my favourite horror movies. In The Waving Man, they are named after the characters in one of my favourite horror movies, Scream.
In the story Slasher Camp, I took inspiration from my favorite children's book series from when I was younger, Goosebumps by R.L Stine. Throughout the 62 books that make up the series, my all-time favourite is Ghost Camp. This story centres around two brothers who go to a summer camp where something sinister is lurking beneath the surface. Likewise, I also took inspiration from the slasher movie classic Sleepaway Camp. This film is iconic as it has one of the best twists of any slasher film to date. I played with this in my own story, by making Laurie the killer and directly addressing the twist ending.
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