Gnostalgia
"A Good Man is a tasty little morsel that will stick with you for some time. Vanessa Morgan's vampires are different, very different. Karma, vampires, life, philosophy, I was hooked from the start. Excellent story; my mind's eye can still see the final scene as I write this post. I highly recommend A Good Man."
Love, Literature, Art, and Reason
"A Good Man is captivating, thought provoking, and it makes you wonder if we really know our friends. And of course, it makes us wonder if Louis is a good man and what a good man really is. This story makes you ponder the nature of good and evil and the nature of man, despite the fact that Louis is a vampire. He's refreshingly very human. Louis has definite similarities to Patrick Bateman fromAmerican Psycho, which is great. I'd love to see this story unfold on screen. The character of Madame Renaud reminds us how some of us are more obvious than others, but that we are all dishonest in some fashion, Louis especially. This story also makes you think about how what you do causes a ripple effect, whether you mean to impact the lives of others or not. Whether negative or positive, your effect on others means you matter. This was one of those stories that was deeper than the surface."
Kathryn's Inbox
"A Good Man, which is currently in pre-production with Radowski Films, tells the story of a man who became a vampire late in life and is now forced to suffer eternity in the body of a fifty-five year old man that comes complete with arthritis and wrinkles. To atone for the fact that he must murder others to stay alive (if he stops drinking blood, he will be forced to spend eternity as a plant), he does his best to be a good man in other areas of his life - his diet is strictly vegetarian, he donates the clothes of the people he murders to the homeless and at one point, he even adopts the beloved cat of one of his victims. Sadly, his attempts at doing the right thing often come unstuck, with tragic and occasionally comical results. I thought A Good Man was an excellent screenplay with a fantastic blend of comedy and horror. Highly recommended."
I am happy to welcome Vanessa Morgan to Colorimetry to talk about her screenplay, A Good Man. Today is the perfect day to highlight it because... the movie adaption will have its official premiere today, April 12, at Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and will then be screened at the Cannes Film Festival. So... it's a celebration!
What
inspired you to write this story? And why did you choose a screenplay?
I was asked to write A Good Man as
a screenplay for a Belgian film production company. I had total freedom; it
just needed to be a vampire movie and the main parts had to be written for
certain actors (Pierre Lekeux, Matthias Pohl, Flavio Tosti). I imagined how
these actors, with their unique personalities and sensibilities, would behave
if they were to be turned into a vampire or came into contact with one. As the
main actor is an older man who deals with atritis and lack of self-confidence,
the idea of an old vampire who can‘t cope with his eternal artritis and
wrinkles quickly became the basis of A Good Man.
Part of A Good Man has already been
shot. I’ll soon be posting the trailer and behind-the-scenes photos on my blog
(http://vanessa-morgan.blogspot.com).
Fun fact: my cat, Avalon, who has his own blog at http://avalon-lion.blogspot.com
plays himself in A Good Man. He also played one of the victims in the
film adaptation of my short story The Strangers Outside.
Do
you have a favorite scene?
Most readers prefer the funny scenes: the
whining vampires from Louis‘ vampire support group (sort of AA for the undead)
or the cat turning into a vampire and then going on a kitty killing spree. But
my favorites are the intimate scenes where we can feel Louis‘ loneliness and
isolation, the scenes where he observes the people who lead the lives he can
only dream of, or the moment he starts a conversation with a telephone operator
because he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to.
Share
something personal!! Where do you like to write?
Usually on my couch, but I also write in
coffee shops. I love the one in the airport because it stays open all night.
Fav
snack?
Cheesecake.
All-time
favorite reads?
When Vanessa Morgan’s first novel of supernatural suspense, Drowned Sorrow, came out in 2009, critics all over the world praised her as the ‘female version of Stephen King’. In 2010 followed a short YA story: The Strangers Outside. Both books quickly became Amazon bestsellers and are currently being turned into movies. Suko’s Notebook called her writing “Everything horror fiction should be: creepy, scary, suspenseful, and yet also touching”, horror director Lucky McKee said Vanessa is “a startling new voice in horror”, and author Scott Nicholson has hailed her as a “talent of pacing and spookiness”.
Vanessa Morgan was born May 24, 1975 in Vilvoorde, Belgium. She graduated from Vrije Universiteit Brussel and she first worked as a freelance journalist, a language teacher and a pet supply store manager before becoming a full-time writer. Her native language is Dutch, but she loves to write in other languages such as English and French.
Vanessa Morgan lives in Brussels, Belgium, where she is at work on a French vampire screenplay for Radowski Films and a comic book series starring her beloved cat Avalon.
