Meghan: Hey, Mike! Welcome back! Last time you talked about creating movies, and I’m glad to have you back, especially with the new book recently published. What is your favorite part of Halloween?
Mike: As a kid I loved it because it was the one time of year it was okay to be me in public. I didn’t catch any shit for being a weirdo obsessed with horror movies. As an adult I love it because it brings out creativity in normal people and it warms my heart seeing people making decorations and costumes.
Meghan: Do you get scared easily?
Mike: Not at all. The things that scare me are much more existential than monstrous or spooky.
Meghan: What is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen and why?
Mike: Even as a kid, movies didn’t really scare me, but one that really got under my skin was Fire in The Sky. The flashback scenes of the main character being experimented on by aliens is still one of the most unsettling and frightening sequences I’ve ever seen in a movie.
Meghan: Which horror movie murder did you find the most disturbing?
Mike: Not a murder per say, but the woman they find in the french film, Martyrs, that has the metal device stapled into her head. She just starts rubbing her raw exposed skin against the wall like a dog and screaming and it’s extremely disturbing.
Meghan: Is there a horror movie you refused to watch because the commercials scared you too much?
Mike: Not really, but there were a lot I saw as a kid and would make up the movie in my head because I wasn’t allowed to go see it.
Meghan: If you got trapped in one scary movie, which would you choose?
Mike: Dawn of the Dead
Meghan: What is your all-time favorite scary monster or creature of the night?
Mike: The Blob
Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween tradition?
Mike: Being an FX artist and horror filmmaker, I literally am surrounded by this stuff every day so I don’t really have any particular Halloween traditions anymore. I do love the first midnight stroll through town when the weather changes and I can wear a hoodie though.
Meghan: What is your favorite horror or Halloween-themed song?
Mike: The Creepshow’s cover of the Misfits song, Halloween.
Meghan: Which horror novel unsettled you the most?
Mike: Probably The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum or Surivor by JF Gonzalez.
Meghan: What is the creepiest thing that’s ever happened while you were alone?
Mike: I was once location scouting abandoned houses for shooting I’m Dreaming of a White Doomsday and as I was standing in a pitch black abandoned living room, I heard breathing from the other side of the room. I exited VERY quickly and never went back.
Meghan: Which unsolved mystery fascinates you the most?
Mike: There was an episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction where a kid was locked in his closet by his friends and started screaming. They opened the door and he was gone without a trace. The end of the episode claimed it was based on actual events and it scared the hell out of me as a kid.
Meghan: What is the spookiest ghost story that you have ever heard?
Mike: There was a story called The Horror at Berkeley Square in an old real life hauntings book I had when I was a kid and it really freaked me out.
Meghan: In a zombie apocalypse, what is your weapon of choice?
Mike: Fire axe.
Meghan: Okay, let’s have some fun: Would you rather get bitten by a vampire or a werewolf?
Mike: Werewolf because I could at least shackle myself on the full moon.
Meghan: Would you rather fight a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion?
Mike: Zombies.
Meghan: Would you rather drink zombie juice or eat dead bodies from the graveyard?
Mike: Not sure what zombie juice is, but I’ll take my chances. Was never much for carrion.
Meghan: Would you rather stay at the Poltergeist house or the Amityville house for a week?
Mike: I’ll take my chances at he Amityville Hoax.
Meghan: Would you rather chew on a bitter melon with chilies or maggot-infested cheese?
Mike: Bitter melon.
Meghan: Would you rather drink from a witch’s cauldron or lick cotton candy made of spider webs?
Mike: I do love me some cotton candy.
Boo-graphy:
Mike Lombardo grew up on a steady diet of Goosebumps, scary story books, ’90s Nickelodeon, and horror PC games. He is an award-winning independent filmmaker, writer and FX artist who runs Reel Splatter Productions. In 2017, his first feature film, I’m Dreaming of a White Doomsday, played the festival circuit around the world, taking home seven awards including multiple Best Picture and Best Actress wins, and over a dozen nominations. He debut short story collection, Please Don’t Tap on the Glass & Other Tales of the Melancholy & Grotesque, was released in August of 2022.
He is the star of the award winning documentary, The Brilliant Terror, from Lonfall Films, which chronicles the world of indie horror and the lengths that low budget filmmakers will go to get their projects made.
He currently lives in Lancaster, PA surrounded by skeletons and old movies. If you would like to experience more of his insanity, you can find him online at Reel Splatter, Facebook, YouTube, and on moonlit nights wandering the ruins of defunct video stores mourning the death of physical media.
Eleven stories of grief, existential dread, extreme horror, and gross out comedy.
After discovering a tape he’s never heard of at a video store closing sale, a VHS collector discovers that sometimes nostalgia comes at a terrible price in Dead Format.
In Weekend at Escobar’s, a man finds himself smuggling drugs across the border stuffed inside the corpse of a cartel boss he’s trying to pass off as living.
An eighteen-year-old virgin’s first trip to the porn store goes horribly awry in Just Like the Real Thing.
With supplies and hope dwindling as they struggle to survive in a fallout shelter, a mother gives her son one last Christmas in the original short story that inspired the award-winning film, I’m Dreaming of a White Doomsday.
These and more await as you are invited to gaze into the depths of the twisted mind of filmmaker Mike Lombardo, just be careful you don’t tap on the glass, you might not like what you stir up…
A mother and her 8 year old son struggle to survive in a bomb shelter after an unnamed apocalypse.
Meghan's House of Books 