PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Katherine Daniel’s debut book, When the Night Comes Knocking is everything I love in a book: a group of people locked inside one location with no means to escape. In this case, it’s a convenience store on a mountain in the woods while a creature borne in folklore stalks them and they have nowhere to go. Set on the night before Thanksgiving, When the Night Comes Knocking blew me away, especially given this is Katherine’s first novel. It’s tense, bloody, violent, and through the whole thing, the biggest question is, will the dog survive? I guess you’ll have to read the book to find out!
To celebrate the release of When the Night Comes Knocking, I chatted with Katherine about what sparked the idea for the story, if the book were to be made into a movie (I would love that!), horror, and more!
PopHorror: What first sparked the idea for When the Night Comes Knocking? Was there a specific moment or a late-night experience in your own life that made you think, “What if?”
Katherine Daniel: Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been very drawn to creature features and “survive the night” stories in horror media, so I knew I wanted to explore those styles when it came to writing my first horror novel. With When the Night Comes Knocking, the initial idea centered a lot around setting, particularly in wanting to take advantage of the beautiful nature in my home state of Georgia. I love how rich the folklore and storytelling is throughout Appalachia, so placing the story on Blood Mountain felt like a very natural background to match my desire of cultivating an ancient monster tale.
PopHorror: Were there any scenes that genuinely scared you while you were writing them?
Katherine Daniel: It wasn’t so much that I would get really scared while writing certain scenes, but rather I would end up having nightmares when later trying to sleep—which I always felt meant that the process was working! But in terms of scenes that especially creeped me out, there’s one where a character named Jim is alone and having an interaction with the story’s monster. For whatever reason, the visuals and uneasy escalation of the confrontation that occurs during that scene got under my skin a bit while writing.
PopHorror: Jim’s story was definitely heartbreaking and I can see how it would get under your skin. If this book were to become a movie, what is the most important visual detail a director needs to get right?
Katherine Daniel: To me, the monster design for the Mimic would be the most important visual aspect for a potential film adaptation of When the Night Comes Knocking. I would love to see an actual puppet/animatronic style creature model utilized instead of endless CGI. Give me practical effects! Give me real fake blood!
PopHorror: Yes! I don’t want CGI blood. I want an actor in a suit, and I want to see the blood dripping from its fingertips. The novel concludes in a very specific, carefully constructed way. Without giving away spoilers, did you always know how When the Night Comes Knocking would end, or did the conclusion shift as you wrote the characters’ journeys?
Katherine Daniel: There were definitely plenty of aspects of the book that I ended up changing throughout the drafting process, but I sort of always envisioned the story ending where the epilogue does. I loved the idea of showcasing the mirrored familial relationship we see at the end compared to the one we see in certain flashbacks with that specific character during the story; I also wanted to continue to follow that thread of folkloric storytelling that runs throughout the novel beneath all of the monster lore.
PopHorror: You have said you love to write about the “most monstrous parts of being human.” Why do you think horror is the best genre to explore that?
Katherine Daniel: Horror gives us a safe space to confront all of our ugliest emotions and feelings—be that grief, guilt, regret, sorrow, rage. Whether those be portrayed in the forms of literal monsters or the monsters that we as humans battle internally, there is a very vulnerable nature to horror in that we come to it with this willingness to be made scared or uncomfortable or see parts of ourselves that we might not necessarily like. Horror is very much a mirror in that way, and I think that’s something people are always going to have some sort of curiosity in exploring.
PopHorror: I have one last question for you. What’s your favorite scary movie?
Katherine Daniel: There are so many scary movies that I adore and that are comfort films for me, though Neil Marshall’s The Descent is one of my very favorites. Beautifully shot, beautifully acted. As someone who has become more claustrophobic as I’ve gotten older, the thought of caving is already so freaky to me in and of itself; but on top of that, it’s a spectacular creature feature which are my favorite types of horror movies to watch. I will always love a good monster!
Thank you so much to Katherine for taking the time to chat with us! When the Night Comes Knocking is available now!
