By Jim Mcleod 
Before the seductive vampire Jerry Dandrige ever cast a shadow over the quiet suburbs of Fright Night: Hellbound, he walked the lawless, pulsating streets of 1970s Manhattan. In Fright Night: Hellbound, author Michael Harbron takes us back to the beginning, revealing the origin story of one of horror’s most charismatic monsters.
This officially sanctioned prequel plunges Jerry and his companion, Billy Cole, into a decaying New York City, a world of rampant crime, underground disco, and a supernatural threat that could dismantle a vampire’s very existence. We sat down with Harbron to discuss why this time and place was the perfect crucible for Jerry’s American saga, how he balances dark new horrors with the beloved legacy of the 1985 cult classic, and what it means to officially expand a universe so close to his, and so many fans’, hearts.
From Disco to Darkness: Michael Harbron on Unleashing Fright Night: Hellbound
The official description places Jerry Dandrige in the “lawless underworld of 1970s Manhattan.” What was it about this specific time and place that felt like the right origin story for the vampire we met in the suburbs in 1985?
Most horror stories are set in small suburban towns, and I actually think the horror is exemplified when you make it bigger. Part of the realism of setting the story in a big city was to ground it in a place that isn’t used often, and I have somewhat of a love affair with Manhattan. The energy of the place is just magical. I feel you could live there for a thousand years and still find something new on every corner. A new story, a new idea, a new horror.
I wanted to explain the back story of how Jerry and Billy came to America. Manhattan in the 70s was crumbling, crime was rife, but underground there was an explosion of art, pop culture and disco. I wanted them to experience something much larger than themselves both physically and metaphorically, which would lead them to Rancho Corvalis.
The book introduces a new character, Lucia Moreno, a grieving bar owner. How does her perspective, as an ordinary person caught in the supernatural crossfire, help to ground the story and build tension for the reader?
Lucia represents humanity’s breaking point, what happens when grief meets something larger than life. Through her, we explore the idea that evil doesn’t always arrive with horns or fangs; sometimes it finds the vulnerable and reshapes them. The tension isn’t just about what’s chasing her, it’s about how far she’ll go to survive, and what she’s willing to become in the process.
The novel’s description mentions that Jerry is forced to confront something “far more dangerous” than himself. Without giving too much away, can you discuss the nature of this new threat and how it challenges a classic vampire’s power?
Without giving too much away, the new threat in Hellbound isn’t another vampire or hunter, it’s something older, something that predates both. Jerry’s used to being the apex predator; he’s spent centuries manipulating fear, desire, and death itself. But what he encounters in this story dismantles that hierarchy. It challenges not just his power, but his place in the natural order, and forces him to rethink how he lives as a vampire.
The original Fright Night (1985) is celebrated as a cult classic that perfectly blended horror and comedy. How did you approach balancing the tone between paying homage to that legacy and establishing your own, perhaps darker, voice in this new story?
Fright Night was the first horror movie I ever saw, and it set the stage for my fascination with the genre. When I was writing Hellbound, all I could see in my head were Chris Sarandon (Jerry Dandrige) and Jonathan Stark (Billy Cole). Each brought their own kind of humor to the screen, and I used that to shape their voices in the novel. I wanted to explore what made them tick, the men behind the monsters. Once I understood that, and the story I wanted to tell, everything else fell into place.
Whenever someone expands a franchise, whether it’s a reboot or a prequel, I think it’s crucial to complement the legacy, not complicate it. Because I came at this as a fan first, I knew where to honor the tone and where to evolve it.
Tom (the director) and I became good friends, and I spent many a night talking to him about the movie and the meaning behind some of the lore, including questions that fans had. What was the homoerotic tension between Billy and Jerry all about? How did he survive all these years? (Just because you can live forever, doesn’t mean you can live well.) I answered these questions and finished some of the story Tom couldn’t perhaps say in the 80s.
This project is part of a larger revival of Fright Night, what is it like to contribute to this officially recognised expansion of the lore, and did you collaborate with others involved in the franchise?
Honestly, it still feels surreal. It’s such a full-circle moment that I can’t quite believe I’ve contributed to something with this kind of legacy. I’m incredibly grateful to the people who built it and trusted me to add to it.
The franchise has gone in multiple directions over the years. My goal with Hellbound was to bring it back to what fans loved about the 1985 movie, something more grounded and rooted in realism. When I finished exploring all the unanswered questions from the original, I asked Tom for carte blanche to write the prequel. He said yes, and from that point on, it was clear this story would live in the original universe, darker, more human, and closer in tone to the original film. Going forward, I’ll help shape the franchise into something more streamlined and focused that honors the movie.
A key theme of Fright Night has always been the “horror fan vs. real monster” dynamic. How did you translate that core idea into the very different context of 1970s New York?
New York in the 70s was its own monster. And it was really the perfect city to be in at that time if you wanted to enact evil.
The decay and meteoric rise of the city in the span of a decade allowed me to toy with various aspects, from walking down a dark alley at night, to seducing someone in Studio 54.
Building tension and fear across interconnected stories is a hallmark of fantastic horror universes. How did you plant narrative seeds in “Hellbound” that could potentially grow into future stories, while ensuring this novel feels like a complete and satisfying experience on its own?
I’m such a typical horror fan, I love Easter eggs, interconnected stories, and little homages. Hellbound is full of those moments.
One of the most exciting parts for me was bringing in a character from my Interview with the Devil series, Lilly. I wanted to bring in Regine from Fright Night 2, but due to copyright, I couldn’t. Lilly’s always been a cornerstone of my writing: sassy, vibrant, doesn’t take any crap. She was already living in New York around that time in my other universe, so she naturally fit into Hellbound. She became the perfect “Maria” for Jerry.
I also wanted every character to carry enough intrigue that they could stand on their own if the story ever expanded, people like Haden Moore, for example. But I still wanted Hellbound to feel self-contained. It answers big questions, it ties off emotional arcs, and if this were the only story you ever read, it would still feel complete, just with a few cracks left open for what might crawl through next.
The original film was praised for its practical effects and creature design. In a literary medium, how do you use language to create equally vivid and terrifying imagery for your readers?
If there’s one thing I’ve been told time and time again, it’s that readers feel like they are actually living my stories. There’s a basement scene in the opening of Devil that I wrote, and it’s the one piece of feedback that’s been consistent, “I thought I was in the basement!”
I don’t usually go for the gore. I’ve used it a sprinkling of times throughout Devil and Fright Night, but slashers don’t do it for me, it feels somewhat too easy. So, I build the tension around the moment, show vs tell. I describe scenes in detail, so that when you’re walking down into the basement, I’m reminding you of the lightbulb hanging on by a thread, the darkness below, the wooden or concrete steps that you’d walk down, and the fear that the door might close behind you. All of this reignites dormant fears that tortured us as kids.
Can you discuss the process of expanding the Fright Night lore? What new rules or mythos did you feel you could introduce, and what established vampire tropes or aspects of Jerry’s character from the film did you think were essential to preserve?
I’ve always seen Jerry as empathetic, and I want to say that this was the running theme throughout. He gives people a choice, he feeds out of necessity, not pleasure. I wanted to humanize him in a way that hadn’t been done before. In Hellbound, we see him spilling his heart out to Lilly in a coffee shop. That’s the kind of moment I live for, grounding the horror in something recognizably human. Even Billy battles with human emotions and grief. However, the typical trope of a vampire horror is the undercurrent, so just because I humanize Jerry, doesn’t mean there’s less viciousness.
With Billy, I made a big creative choice based on fan curiosity and on my own conversations with Tom. During the filming of Fright Night, Tom’s close friend Hal Buckley was dying of AIDS, and that loss hit him deeply. The homoerotic undertones between Billy and Jerry were Tom’s quiet homage, a way of acknowledging grief, love, and a community being ravaged in silence. In Hellbound, I wanted to give voice to what Tom couldn’t say back then. I leaned into that connection, made it explicit, and honored it. It felt like the right way to complete that circle.
Your other work, Interview with the Devil, deals with complex religious themes and a protagonist with a troubled, ultra-religious upbringing. Do you find yourself drawn to exploring the intersection of personal belief, trauma, and the supernatural in your horror writing?
That’s a really good question, and yes, though not intentionally. I think it comes from my obsession with realism. Religion, in a lot of ways, is the oldest form of supernatural storytelling. It deals with fear, morality, power, and the unknown, the same raw materials that horror thrives on.
I do think religion is the catalyst for a lot of people’s traumas, including my own, but I’ve never wanted to be a “religious writer.” It just seeps in because so many supernatural tropes echo faith and dogma. Interview with the Devil started with a simple question: why is the Devil so bad? From there it evolved into this philosophical dance about free will and the illusion of Godhood — and ultimately, the harder question: where was God when the earthquake happened? Of course, everyone blames it on the Devil!
What aspects of your own “lived experience,” whether from your personal history or your broader observations of the world, do you find most inform the fears and tensions you write about?
This might sound deeper than it should, but I think as a civilization we’re hardwired to catastrophize. It’s why so many of us live in the realm of “what if?” Worrying about things that might never happen, building worst-case scenarios in our heads, going nuclear on problems that, to the outside world, don’t look that bad. Those fears are the ones that fascinate me the most.
The what if is universal. What if something’s watching me? What if I’m not safe in my own home? What if I’m right about the thing everyone else says isn’t there? That uncertainty is where the horror lives. It’s why The X-Files worked so well — they rarely showed you the monster, they just let your imagination fill in the blanks. And THAT always had me thinking about the show long after it finished.
I don’t, however, always follow that rule, sometimes you have to let the beast off the leash
From the nostalgic, practical-effects-driven horror of 1985 to your new novel in 2025, what do you see as the most significant evolution in what audiences find frightening, and how does your writing speak to a modern horror audience?
One of the main reasons I started writing Interview with the Devil was because I was bored. Everything I was reading and watching felt recycled, the same tropes, the same predictable scares. I think audiences today feel that too. They’re looking for something more psychological, more grounded in reality. A film like Weapons works because it makes the horror feel possible, the idea that your kid could go missing and be in the basement two houses down. That’s far scarier than a CGI monster, regardless of the villain.
Fright Night: Hellbound actually forced me to change how I write. Because I knew the movie and its characters so well, I found myself writing more like a screenplay, fast, direct, visual. And that felt right. Horror readers today don’t necessarily want dense prose or endless exposition. They want momentum and something cinematic that still delivers depth and emotion.
When I first released Devil, it was heavily layered. It was a world build where the Devil didn’t even appear until chapter thirteen. Stephen King fans loved that kind of patience, and I received a lot of acclaim and praise for it, but others wanted immediacy. So, I stripped it back, tightened it, and the response has been even stronger.
The truth is, horror has evolved the same way audiences have, we want things faster, but we still crave meaning. Technology has shortened our attention spans, but not our appetite for a good scare. I’m fine with that.
My job is to meet readers where they are and still make them sleep with the lights on.
Fright Night: by Michael Harbron (Author), Tom Holland (Foreword)
Before Rancho Corvallis, before Charley Brewster, there was New York City—filthy, violent, and vibrating with occult energy.
Set in the lawless underworld of 1970s Manhattan, Fright Night: Hellbound blends vampire horror, pop culture and demonic possession into a blood-soaked tale of survival and damnation.
Having fled Europe, Jerry Dandrige arrives in New York with his familiar Billy Cole, hoping to vanish in the chaos of disco, social decline and anonymity. But when ritualistic murders begin to sweep the city, and whispers of a “vampire killer” rise through alleyways and newsrooms, Jerry realizes something older and far more dangerous is hunting beneath the surface.
As the city spirals into terror, Jerry is forced to confront his thirst, his past, and his fate. Can he stop Hell from being unleashed—or is he merely one of the monsters who brought it here?
Interview with the Devil: Part One (The Devil Universe) by Michael Harbron
“Interview with the Devil’ is a chilling masterpiece that captivates and terrifies in equal measure. Joseph Banbury’s journey is brilliantly conceived, forcing us to confront our deepest fears and beliefs. Truly amazing.” – Tom Holland (Fright Night, Chucky)
Scrubs Magazine’s 2024 Top Read, “THE BEST HORROR BOOK THIS CENTURY.”
What if everything you thought you knew about the Devil was a lie?
Joseph Banbury, a fearless author who took the literary world by storm with his provocative book challenging religion, thought he was prepared for anything. But when he’s confronted by the Devil himself with an irresistible offer—to document Satan’s side of the story—Joseph is plunged into a nightmarish journey beyond his darkest imagination.
Joseph must navigate the treacherous depths of Hell itself, where nothing is as it seems and every truth comes wrapped in layers of deception. As Joseph delves deeper into the Devil’s twisted narrative, he uncovers a chilling prophecy that foretells the end of the Universe. The clock is ticking, and the fate of humanity rests on a razor’s edge.
Will Joseph succumb to the dark forces at play, or will he defy the Devil and change the course of destiny? This is not just a story—it’s a battle for the very soul of mankind.
Join the legions of readers who have been captivated by this gripping, mind-bending horror novel. “Interview with the Devil” is more than a book—it’s an experience. Start the journey today, and discover a world where the stakes couldn’t be higher.
MICHAEL HARBRON
Michael Harbron is an American fiction writer who brings a unique, yet traditional approach to the horror and supernatural genres. From a young age, Harbron was captivated by the eerie and unexplained, a fascination that has deeply influenced his writing. Rather than relying on gore, his works aim to unsettle readers through suspense and psychological depth, revisiting the shadowy corners of childhood fears. His debut novel, “Interview with the Devil,” exemplifies the blurred lines between reality and the unimaginable. Harbron’s storytelling resurrects dormant fears, proving that true horror lies not in what is seen, but in what is felt. Find out more about Michael Harbron here
Interviews on Ginger Nuts of Horror
If you’re a fan of horror literature and cinema, then you absolutely need to check out the horror interview section of Ginger Nuts of Horror.
Firstly, the interviews feature a diverse range of authors, filmmakers, and horror enthusiasts, allowing readers to gain a multifaceted understanding of the genre. Each interview is an opportunity to explore the creative processes, inspirations, and personal stories behind the minds that produce some of the most chilling and thought-provoking works in horror today. From seasoned veterans to up-and-coming talents, the variety of voices ensures that readers can find something that resonates with them.
Moreover, these interviews often delve into the nuances of what makes horror such a compelling genre. Contributors share their thoughts on the psychological aspects of fear, the societal influences on horror trends, and the ways in which horror reflects cultural anxieties. This deeper exploration not only enriches one’s appreciation for horror stories but also fosters discussions about broader themes, such as identity, morality, and existential dread.
The interviews frequently touch on practical advice and industry insights. Writers and creators often share the hurdles they faced in their careers, tips for aspiring horror writers, and the realities of getting published or produced. This wealth of knowledge is invaluable for anyone looking to navigate the sometimes challenging waters of the horror genre. Readers interested in breaking into horror writing or filmmaking will find a treasure trove of wisdom that could pave their path toward success.
Lastly, the community aspect of Ginger Nuts of Horror cannot be overlooked. Engaging with these interviews allows readers to feel connected to a larger community of horror enthusiasts. Comment sections and social media interactions often follow, enabling fans to discuss their thoughts and engage with both the interviewees and fellow readers.
In conclusion, the horror interview section of Ginger Nuts of Horror is an essential resource for anyone interested in the genre. It provides rich insights, guidance, and inspiration that can deepen one’s appreciation for horror while fostering a vibrant community among fans and creators alike. Don’t miss out on the chance to delve into the minds of your favorite horror creators!
