Richard Chizmar
American horror author and founder of Cemetery Dance Publications, author of the Boogeyman trilogy
Richard Chizmar (American horror author and founder of Cemetery Dance Publications, author of the Boogeyman trilogy) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Chasing the Boogeyman, Gwendy's Button Box, Halloween (1978 film).
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Chasing the Boogeyman
Chizmar considers Chasing the Boogeyman closer to a thriller than a traditional horror novel.
“I still think Chasing the Boogeyman in a lot of ways is more of a thriller than it is a traditional horror novel”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:57:36
Chizmar says he learned the book's success came from readers relating their own childhoods to it rather than from interest in him.
“it was never about me in the first place. It was about how they related to it”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 46:48
Chizmar says the first book used real names of his friends and parents and functioned largely as a memoir, with only the murders invented.
“everyone's names are all my true friends' names. I like my parents' names. It was just, it was a memoir in a lot of ways”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 20:17
Chizmar says he deliberately placed photographs at the end of each chapter rather than in a central insert as true crime books do.
“So I knew I wanted photos and I knew I wanted to put them at the end of each chapter”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 4:51
Chizmar says the first Boogeyman book was never intended to have a sequel.
“Especially because there was never supposed to be a second book”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:35
Gwendy's Button Box
Chizmar relays King's explanation that he chose Chizmar to finish Gwendy because of how he writes ordinary people.
“he does everyday people so well in everyday settings. And I thought if anyone could finish Gwendy, it would be him”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:44:56
Chizmar says Stephen King rejected his original ending for Gwendy's Button Box as too dark, which he later agreed made the sequels possible.
“I wrote the original ending. He actually wrote back and said, Rich, this is too dark”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:36:32
Halloween (1978 film)
Chizmar says Halloween defines his storytelling approach of showing little while occasionally delivering a scare.
“I'm going to try to show you as little as possible to scare you, but every once in a while, I'm going to jump you”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:47:43
Cemetery Dance
Chizmar recounts that after years of sending issues of Cemetery Dance to King's office, King sent him an original story in 1991.
“In 91, Stephen King sent me an original story, Chattery Teeth”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:30:05
The Stranger Beside Me
Chizmar names Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me as long the scariest book he had read, citing its vivid details as an inspiration to write.
“my answer to the scariest book I've ever read for a long time was, uh, and rules the stranger beside”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:27:31
Fiction writing and editing process
Chizmar describes himself as a non-outliner who lets the story's momentum carry him.
“I'm not a big outliner. So I always just say, I honestly, you know, I let the story gain momentum”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:16:53
Horror fiction versus true crime
Chizmar says he leaves some mysteries unexplained because real serial cases, as shown in true crime books, rarely resolve neatly.
“it's never usually super neat with a bow tie on the end, no matter how good the detectives are or the police”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:15:36
Killing the Boogeyman
Chizmar says he wanted the third book to push readers right to the edge of believing the killer might be supernatural.
“I wanted to push them just to the, right to the edge of that blurry line”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 1:11:08
The Blair Witch Project
Chizmar says he originally wanted to market Chasing the Boogeyman as a Blair Witch-style hoax, but the publisher's legal department refused.
“Well, the original idea for Chasing the Boogeyman was to Blair Witch the audience completely”
Morbid: Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Sep 25, 2026) · Listen from 6:22
Appearances
Morbid Book Club: Killing The Boogeyman by Richard ChizmarMorbid · Sep 25, 2026 · 2 h 11 min
Morbid hosts Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart talk with horror author Richard Chizmar about his Boogeyman trilogy finale, Killing the Boogeyman, and collaborating with Stephen King.
Discussed in
- The Eddy Brothers and the High Life Ski Club
Morbid · Oct 1, 2026 · 46 min
Morbid hosts Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart recount the 1870s Vermont mediums William and Horatio Eddy, their Spiritualist fame, fraud allegations, and their haunted former tavern.
Often appears with
- Alaina Urquhart · 1 shared episode
- Ash Kelley · 1 shared episode