ED- The Eerie Digest is proud to present one of Hollywood’s leading producers to all our readers. Tino Struckmann is one of those rare individuals who has worn many hats successfully in filmmaking. He also has a surprising background that most people are totally unaware of . Tino, tell us about your early military career.

TS- interesting enough my military career came after working as a bodyguard for many years, I worked security jobs since 17 and after working with many veterans I thought it time to serve my country, so I served nearly 10 years with the ARMY, started with the military police and ended up an instructor with a few fun games in the middle and oddly enough they are the ones who pushed me towards Hollywood by having me lead a recruitment commercial. I still did various deployments around the world but finally ended up making movies.

ED- You also had competed in many contest of physical strength. Please let our readers know about these and the championships that you had won.

TS-I started competing in bodybuilding at 18 and won several local shows in California, the nationals and placed in several European shows. But still find the best cardio is MMA, and train every week it’s a great combination of the different martial arts I have done and may even have a fight coming up..

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ED- The Eerie Digest is very pleased to present author Richard Gazala to all our readers. Richard, you were born in Ohio and moved to Beirut, Lebanon when you were young. Why did your family move there, and what kind of culture differences did you experience at such a young age?

RG- I appreciate the opportunity to enjoy this exchange with The Eerie Digest and its readers. My family moved to Beirut when I was a young boy because of my father’s job. Dad worked for an American bank, and in the mid-1960s was tasked with establishing the bank’s presence in the Middle East. At the time we moved there, Lebanon still was influenced heavily from being under French control until Lebanese independence in 1943. From its founding over 5000 years ago, Beirut had been dominated in succession by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, and over 400 years of Ottoman rule until the French took control of Lebanon after WW I. (more…)

ED- The Eerie Digest is extremely happy to present actor George Williams to all our readers. George, you moved to the Washington, DC area when you were young. Please tell us about this aspect of your life.

GW- I lived the majority of my life in the DC suburbs (Md. & Va.), from babyhood thru 1993. DC’s a wonderful city, full of the arts, especially music, restaurants, and theatre, and great people. It is THE typical 4-season climate. I loved it there! And still LOVE my Washington Redskins!

ED- You served in the Army and were wounded in Vietnam. You were also highly decorated. Please tell our readers know about your experiences during this period.

GW- Back in my day, the Army wasn’t all-volunteer, as it is today. You either went in, or ran and hid, or made up some scam reason to get out. I chose to go in and, as corny as it sounds, “do my duty”. After training in Ft. Bragg, NC, and Fort Knox, KY, I went to Vietnam in an armor unit (tanks) in ’70. And after 10 months, I came home with some pretty nasty scars from mortar shrapnel. It makes for an interesting conversation piece.

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ED- The Eerie Digest is very pleased to present Young Adult (YA) author Judith Graves to all of our readers. Judith, your writing reaches out to an explosive segment of our writing industry. So much has taken place recently within the young adult audience to encourage this phenomenon, such as ‘Twilight’, that writers, and Hollywood, are turning to this new and captivated population of readers and viewers. What encouraged you to seek this genre for your work?

JG- I’ve been a keen reader of adult paranormal fiction since I was a teen. When I started writing and realized my voice matched the YA market, I knew I’d be writing paranormal YA fiction. As a Canadian and as a library technician (working in a school library), I noticed a marked lack of this kind of fun, sexy, commercial fiction set in Canada or written by Canadian authors. I wanted to change that. With the Skinned Series, I work in Canadianisms, lore from First Nations peoples and various creatures from different regions around the world, now settled in Canada. My characters are mixed-bloods, a “melting pot” of paranormals if you will – call it globalization for monsters.

ED- Tell us what influenced you the most to choose writing for your career.

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ED- The Eerie Digest is always on the lookout for new authors. Starting out fresh in the field of Sci-Fi is author Eugene Nelson, Jr. from Chicago. Eugene what drew your interest to this genre of writing ?

EN- Well ED, I have always been fascinated with Sci-Fi. I use to write my mother short Sci-Fi stories while my brothers and sister were at school. At that time I was too young to attend school yet. My father, Eugene Nelson Sr., did not wait for me to start school for learning. He taught me to read and write before I ever started school. When I was about 10 years old, I discovered AD&D. I was hooked from the beginning. I love the action, the variety of races, the many abilities, and especially the magic. Magic has been a love of mine ever since. It makes the hairs on my body stand up, if you know what I mean. Sci-Fi is a bottomless pit of possibilities, and that is what I love most about it. My mother, Carrie Lee Nelson, encouraged me to read and write everyday. She also loved Sci-Fi. We would watch Dr. Who together. I loved the way “The Dr.” would solve situations using Science and his mind. It thrilled me. We also watched a number of other Sci-Fi Series and movies. One of our favorites was Phantoms. It is a great movie. Every time it was on we would call each other to make sure we were both watching it. Sci-Fi gives you the freedom to be whatever you want and wherever you want. I am not saying that I am a control freak, but the aspect of creating my own universe was just to tempting to pass on.

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ED- The Eerie Digest is thrilled to introduce author Victoria Roder to all of our readers. Victoria, your writing is something that our readers live for. Ghosts, action thrillers, and mysteries are what we are about. What launched you into your writing career?

VR- I’m excited to be visiting on The Eerie Digest. I always enjoyed writing, but never considered becoming an author. I began having recurring dreams about a house that my birth family lived in for a brief period of time when I was a child. Even with the passage of time, in the dreams I remained a young girl. Each time I woke up I knew that I had experienced the dream before. The dream began to trouble me, so I discussed it with my sister Tammy. She suggested I write it down, in the hope that it wouldn’t bother me anymore. I began recording the details of the dream and then instead of it not bothering me, it consumed me. I continued to dream about the house, but now the dreams began to evolve and take on a life of their own. It became a movie in my imagination; the characters developed and demanded screen time. I placed a notebook, flashlight, and pen beside the bed. My husband would wake up to find me holding the flashlight and frantically scribbling in the notebook. Those dreams became the premise for my paranormal romance novel The Dream House Visions and Nightmares

ED- What made you choose the genres that you have excelled in ?

VR-In the paranormal realm I chose a ghost story because I am fascinated with the idea of troubled souls attempting to communicate with us. A ghost can give the character information they would not normally have access to. My second novel, Bolt Action is a detective mystery/suspense. I chose a detective story because I am addicted to true crime shows. I don’t watch much television, but when I do it is true crime on Discover ID®

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ED- The Eerie Digest is please to introduce another new actor, William Bresch, to all our readers. William, how did you first get started in the acting field and what was your inspiration to do so ?

WB-I first got started in Acting when I was a kid in school back in the 1970’s. My very first role was one of the three kings in the play “Bethlehem” at Immaculate Conception. then I went on to Frosty the Snowman in Lakeview Elementary School and moved on from there. My Inspiration would be God. I wanted to change the world and people I work with around me, just like Jesus did. I enjoy working for God and have a lot of fun doing it.

ED- Where did you learn to ply your craft ?

WB-I started in Junior High School as Doctor Stevens in “VD” . I was the Dr. who came in and told the patient they have V.D. It was weird, I came on stage and everyone roared with laughter. I started to leave but remembered this is my stage and my show so I stayed right on through the production. I later asked why people laughed and my teacher told me that , people knew me  as a Rough and Tumble kind of kid. they never expected to see me in a Nurturing role. All the students later on told me how good I was and were Impressed with the way I pulled of the Role of the Doctor and should keep up with acting which I did.

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ED- Tell us about your first publication and what it was about.

RS- Yeah, that one I did at eighteen. It was called “Digging it Up.” It was based on a true story. I had a parakeet that I would let fly around my bedroom. One day mother left my room, closed the door, and decapitated the bird. I was six or seven at the time. So I wrapped him up in a wash cloth and buried him in the backyard. I couldn’t leave the bird alone, though. I kept digging him up to see if the head had reattached itself to the body. Now in the story “Digging it Up” the boy’s parents were getting a divorce and the two parts of the bird became these separated parents. Symbolically, of course. So the boy was digging up the bird to see if the parents were going to get back together. Temple University published that, God bless them.

ED- Since that first work you have appeared in many periodicals such as the Baltimore Review, the North American review, G.W. Review, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and many more. Please tell our readers about your accomplishments in these publications, and the type of stories that were printed in them.

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ED- In Hollywood there are some people that wear many hats. This is true for our guest, Woody Bavota. Woody, thank you for letting us interview you for all our readers enjoyment. Tell us how you originally started in the field of Cinema.

WB- I was enamored with filmmaking from the time I was eight. Watching TV shows like The Man From Uncle, The Andy Griffith Show and Candid Camera initially sparked my interest as to how they were made. But, what really opened my eyes to the power of film was seeing Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. By the time I was twelve I received my first super 8 camera.

As a young hippie in training, at fifteen, I went to a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young concert and the lighting just blew me away. Later that night at home I told my parents that I was going to be a lighting director. By the time that I was sixteen I received a $5000.00 loan from my parents to build a lighting board and purchase theatrical lighting. For the next two years I lit anyone that would have me. At eighteen I went to Photography School and at twenty-two I was touring the world. (more…)

The best Dracula movie to come from Universal is, in my opinion, Robert Siodmak’s Son of Dracula (1943). Lon Chaney drops the ‘Jr’ tag and dons the cloak for the role his father never got to play in this pleasing wartime pot boiler dreamt up by Curt Siodmak with a Screenplay by Eric Taylor.
While the second world war raged on in the real world, Dracula, hiding behind the alias Count Alucard for the first time, visited the quiet seclusion of Louisiana, to romance and marry a young girl (Louise Allbritton), who, like many cinematic Lucy Westenras, is obsessed with death and the more morbid side of life. Dracula is unmasked by the learned Professor Lazlo, a convincing performance by J. Edward Bromberg, a survivor of Transylvania.

Dracula gets to perform most of the tricks that are reported in the novel. He has amazing strength, and, with the aid of John P. Fulton’s cartoon animation, he is able to transform into a bat, but both he, and his new bride, seem to prefer wandering around as a floating  mist for most of the time. The Siodmak brothers give the Count his best PR in this film. Never hitting the atmospheric heights of their The Spiral Staircase (1945), the film does carry one or two unpleasant jolts and a couple of rather physical fist fights.

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