Hill’s novel also manages to modernise ghost story tropes in the way it posits technology as a medium for the supernatural. The scenes that describe Jude’s first wife watching a snuff movie she found in his collection are truly chilling.
“Jude’s got that snuff film,” Joe says, “but the idea is, does he own the film or does it own him?”
And of course, there’s the idea of the internet as 21st century conduit for all manner of bad juju. One thing Japanese and Korean horrormeisters understand is that ghosts are even scarier when they manifest themselves through modern media. And revisiting Bram Stoker’s Dracula recently, this reader was struck by how brazenly it utilised what was then considered cutting edge technology: cameras, telegrams, typewriters.
“Yeah, doesn’t the doctor (Seward) record stuff on a phonograph or wax records or something?” Joe points out. “I thought Ringu was great. The reason the second film was so awful was because it has nothing about the videotape in it. The videotape was the most frightening and upsetting part of it. Our technology can be kind of creepy. It’s crept into every part of our lives. It’s funny, before the internet, David Cronenberg had a film called Videodrome.”
I remember it well. On first viewing at age 13, it felt as though my head had been cracked open and scooped out like an egg.
“Boy, that’s a really diseased film, I love it, I’ve seen it about three or four times. James Woods discovers this cult guerilla TV station broadcasting these sick torture sex and snuff films. If you were going to remake it, I assume it would be clips on YouTube. Even as far back as Videodrome in the early 80s, maybe even a little bit before it, I think there was an awareness that technology is bringing with it this great connectivity, and you’re getting all these artists coming in from the edges of the culture, which is great, but there’s also this creepy side of it that’s fun to explore.”
The other thing worth mentioning about Heart-Shaped Box is that the rock star angle doesn’t feel at all forced or corny. So many rock ‘n’ roll themed novels or films are, like Walter Hill’s Streets Of Fire, stylised beyond all credibility.
“That’s got Willem Dafoe walking around in black rubber pants and suspenders for most of the film,” Joe chuckles, “it’s a little hard not to laugh. He looks like he just walked out of Exit To Eden or some really bad fetish comedy.”
Heart-Shaped Box, by contrast, gets under Jude Coyne’s skin (he even has his own MySpace page www.myspace.com/judecoyne) and explores the self-loathing and wasteful lassitude of a rock star put out to pasture. Plus, his story links all eras of the devil’s music, from Johnny Cash and Hank Williams to Black Sabbath and Marilyn Manson.
“Well, the plot is about a guy who buys a haunted suit online,” Joe points out, “but of course, this is a theme that runs throughout blues and country music and hard rock, this idea of selling your soul for advantage. There’s been a brisk trade in souls in popular music going back to the 1920s, probably even further: you see that in Robert Johnson right up through Led Zeppelin. And also you can see that in country music.
“Just as a total aside, if heavy metal is more about attitude than sound, I would say Hank Williams III is more heavy metal than anyone in hard rock. There’s this dark underside to country music, which you don’t really hear in the top 40 – really satisfyingly emotionally creepy.”
Hill’s use of music in the book is double-edged. On one hand there’s the idea of a jaded death-rocker getting his just desserts for messing with occult paraphernalia as a fashion or lifestyle statement. On the other, the music acquires a talismanic power when he picks up a guitar and starts to write songs again. He sings to keep the ghosts away.
“I think a big part of what Heart-Shaped Box is about is the way a certain very unhappy person will use loud angry music as the hammer to beat at the cage,” Joe says, “and that’s who Jude has been ever since he left Louisiana. His music and the persona he invented for himself are a kind of armour he used to protect himself from the sharp edges of the world. I think that is a fairly true character type in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, people who have made music that spills out of their anger or outrage or unhappiness. The tragic thing is that sort of musician has a tendency not to last very long.
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Peter Murphy 
