William Shatner isn’t just a great actor who is as comfortable telling jokes as he is commanding a spaceship in Star Trek, he’s also a natural-born storyteller. That’s why he is the perfection person the filmmakers behind A Christmas Horror Story needed to anchor their movie with.
In A Christmas Horror Story, which is in theaters and On Demand now, Shatner plays a radio DJ who is essentially narrating the story that sets the tone for this fun new horror anthology that twists our normal idea of the joyful Christmas season into something just a bit more demented. We spoke to Shatner on the phone about his history as a storyteller, his own horror movie that he never got to make, and what his relationship is like with Star Trek these days.
On telling scary stories as a kid:
"I've been an actor all my life, even as a kid, but there was a time when, for three years, I was a counselor at a welfare camp in the mountains above Montreal. Kids from the city would come up for two or three weeks and then they'd go home and another batch would come up. There were maybe as many as 20 bunks with 20 kids in each bunk and I was in demand as a storyteller. I'd read a lot of Edgar Allan Poe, and every night I'd go in. These kids were 10 or 11 or so and I was 16 or 17, and the only way I could keep the kids in line was to threaten I wouldn't tell a story that night. I'd go from bunk to bunk, just like they were performances. And I'd tell Edgar Allan Poe stories and scare the bejesus out of them. And then they'd tingle and pull the covers over their heads and go to sleep. Other counselor friends of mine had various jobs. One of my best friends taught swimming, another taught survival. My job was to tell stories."
On having not made too many horror movies:
"I've made some horrible films, he says pointing with pride."
On why horror works:
"Horror is a really wonderfully dramatic venue for a story. It touches us on a very basic level because we're hardwired for horror of the beast coming to eat us at night, or the will of the wisps behind a tree when we're in a cave. Horror is very basic to our nature. It's not an easy touch, but the writers and performers know the notes to hit to make that horror vibrate. We're all tuned to it. It's not like a laugh line where you fiddle with it and tweak it because you don't know if it's funny. Horror is horror. It just works. The little animal coming out of the chest in Alien, spurting out where everyone reacts with horror? That's the essence of a horror film."
On the horror movie he wrote but never made:
"I wrote a horror film, but I never could get it off the ground. The basic premise was this: A hero from one of the wars comes back – it doesn't matter what he'd done, but the key moment is that he has a near-death experience and is on the emergency table and he has that experience where people talk about the white light and their parents appearing and saying, "Come here, my good boy." But he has the opposite. There are gargoyles and devils waiting for him to die. And he pulls himself back from that near-death experience and becomes afraid to die. So that hero, who was willing to die for his country and showed it innumerable times, suddenly has a fear of death and that's upon which the story is based."
On why it didn’t get off the ground:
"I don't know, but I should try again. Having told you that it sounds so good."
On his new career direction:
"What I seem to be pursuing is documentaries. I just did a 2,400-mile ride on a new type of motorcycle. If you go to RivetMotors.com you'll see what I'm talking about. I helped invent a new motorcycle and we drove them from Chicago to Los Angeles. I filmed it, as well as did other things along the way, and I'm calling it Ride. In fact, in an hour, I'm going to the first company to present my sizzle reel to see if they would like to play it on their network. So I've been making a lot of documentaries of late."
On his relationship with Star Trek these days:
"They're making movies and they've gone their way. J.J. Abrams and other wonderful moviemakers have found a way to get people into the theaters for Star Trek. I do an occasional convention. I talk a little bit about Star Trek in a one-man show that I had on Broadway and toured with. In fact, next week I'm going to Australia to tour it. But that's it, really."
A Christmas Horror Story is in select theaters now, and also available On Demand.
