“I'm sure you've heard a few Hart Fisher stories,” he invites me with a laugh on one of our phone calls. “Come on, tell me a good one. I like to hear what people are saying.”
The funny thing is, he's not lying. It's easy to play six degrees of separation with Hart D. Fisher; he knows everyone in the business because he's been in it from every possible aspect for nearly twenty years. He's worked in comics (both on his own line, Boneyard Press, as well as for Glenn Danzig's Verotik label), literature, movies, and now television. He's been on talk shows to promote the genre, including Jerry Springer, Sally Jesse Raphael, and Larry King Live. Hart is a writer, a painter, a photographer, an art director, an actor, an editor, and an investigative journalist. He is also a loving husband; he works his wife Waka, a survivor of ovarian and cervical cancer, into the conversation every chance he can and he speaks with nothing but glowing affection when discussing their nine-year- marriage.
Part of Hart's danger is his charm; he is a serpent in the grass, one with beautiful stripes. He's fascinating to watch, but when he speaks it's lightning in a bottle. He can hold a discourse on anything from his favorite horror movies to his sordid past without batting a lash or sliding a segue between the topics, yet no matter the subject his delivery is what seals the stories for his audience.
It's exactly this talent that is going to make “American Horrors” literally explode like a cherry bomb in the unsuspecting curious faces of the horror genre executives.
“I'm going to take over the industry,” he tells me cheerfully over dinner at the hole-in-the-wall restaurant a few blocks from his Los Angeles home. “The thing is, they're primed for a revolution. For too long the genre has been screwing the fans, the indie filmmakers... everyone who makes it what it is. I want to put the power back where it belongs. I want to bring it back to where it needs to be and make it fun again, make it good. Everyone's ready to tell you that horror is dead, they can't wait to tell you that horror's dead. Well I'm here to prove that it's not--- or if it is, it's undead. It'll just keep coming back over and over and over again, it's relentless. It's gonna come out of the grave no matter how many times you bury it.”
It is a call to arms being issued by perhaps the perfect man for the revolution; Hart has been lampooned, attacked, torn to pieces by critics, and raked over the coals for nearly two decades. His infamous “Marvel Can Suck My Cock” shirts resulted in him being banned or harassed at several conventions and trade shows, and he was often asked to take offensive comic titles off his table to prevent him from scandalizing the patrons of any given convention. He shows no fear when dealing with opposition; if anything he meets it with teeth bared and shoulders squared, fists at the ready. And if anyone knows how to hit and make it count, it's Hart--- he's proficient in many areas of martial arts, and he trains with Gene LeBell, the man who taught Bruce Lee his moves. In short, he's not a man you want on your bad side. And yet he seems to have a lot of enemies in the field, or at least people opposed to his idea of change.
“I used to have a lot of parasites on me, especially when my wife got sick. People who I thought were my closest, best friends, my confidants, turned on me the first chance they could. People change when a life-threatening illness is involved, and in my case as soon as I was busy taking care of Waka, that's when the knives came out,” Hart says reflexively, and though he is speaking in past-tense it's clear these wounds are still fresh. “People I'd known for years and trusted were suddenly sabotaging me, destroying my business, taking money from me while my back was turned. I realized what a bunch of vipers I was surrounded by and I cut them loose. I'm so much happier now than I've been in my life before; I'm where I'm supposed to be.”
It's true that the Hart Fisher I see before me isn't the man I expected to meet after reading his books Poems for the Dead and Still Dead. These poetry collections are savagely dark and tormented, written in the aftermath of the murder of Hart's girlfriend Michelle and the ensuing trial to keep her killer behind bars. I read the poems when I was twelve, listening to the spoken-word CD that came with them; Hart's pain was vibrant and neon lancing through his twisted prose, turning every poem into an exercise in pain and purgatory. He says that the book has been a blessing, as people seek him out regularly to tell him what a difference it made in their lives, how it impacted them as they grew up.
The Hart of the past was controversial just for the sake of shaking things up; he has figured out how to channel that energy now into a productive, targeted attack plan and that is why people should be worried. He briefs me on the plans for the empire of “American Horrors”; an iPhone app is launching the week of Halloween, and soon other cell phone carriers will have access to exclusive content and marketing materials for subscribers. They are picking up independent horror films for distribution and collecting talent from far and wide; to hear Hart describe it is like watching someone assemble a crack team of highly-trained soldiers, each specialized in a particular brand of hurt. He is going to deliver one hell of a punch, with years of indignation, abuse and scandal behind it. He is rallying his troops, recruiting for an army of loyal, dedicated horror fans who can actually get the job done; names like John Skipp and Phil Nutman come up in the same breath as Glenn Danzig. Hart knows what he wants and he knows how to get it, and whether that involves honey or a battering ram, he means to have it.
Watching the reels of “American Horror” already filmed that have been cut for European audiences, it's impossible to see a reason why this show wouldn't get picked up by major networks. In truth, they should be chomping at the bit to get it; the show is well-produced and interesting, hosted by Hart as he and his crew pursue anything in the genre. It isn't dedicated to shots of celebrities walking the red carpet or pimping their latest project; he gives equal attention to things like investigating reports of paranormal activity in the Midwest (an episode reminiscent of “Ghost Hunters”) as he does a segment at the New York Horror Film Festival. He is an enthusiastic, charismatic interviewer who knows his stuff, his questions are insightful and amusing, and every so often he throws out a red herring just to shake up a bored talent who is giving him rote answers. My mother--- a more casual horror fan, and I are both laughing through the episode, delighted with the change of pace from the usual uninspired interview shows; “American Horrors” is a breath of fresh air in a putrid smogscape. The fans are ready--- this is what we've been asking for. Hart is not creating a film company or a record label or a comics house; he is creating an institution, a brand, and he is an expert at both marketing and getting people talking.
Hart is a phenomenal showman and this is his circus; the ringmaster is in the house. He has been through the fire and come out cleansed and purged of the negative energy that plagued him when he was younger; this is a sleeker, streamlined Hart, the dead weight shed like snakeskin and the glowing performer beneath unveiled at long last. “I'm finally in a place where I can let myself be happy and let myself be loved,” Hart says with a smile, relaxing with a glass of red wine as we watch a collection of grindhouse trailers. “I've got all the ammunition I need and I know where I want to aim it.”
I hope the industry's wearing Kevlar, because Hart Fisher is loaded for bear.
Follow Hart and join his revolution at www.americanhorrors.com. You can also read his amazing and controversial true accounts of his tumultuous past at his blog, http://incoldblogger.blogspot.com/.
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