Magna Science Adventure Centre, the former steelworks built in 1915, with its ominous giant metal pillars and brick walls, sits on the outskirts of Rotherham, east of Sheffield, Yorkshire. The location serves as a fittingly ominous backdrop to Horrorcon, a horror movie convention. The family museum hosted the event on 17-18th May. I got Saturday tickets. Cosplay, a short film festival, Q+A panels and photo ops all amalgamate into a horrifyingly fun day.
As I walk in, the ticket scanner machine gives me an Evil Dead 2 quote as it validates.
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| Hellraiser panel |
First panel of the day is a Hellraiser Reunion: Doug Bradley (Pinhead), Ashley Laurence (Kirsty Cotton), Nicholas Vince (Chatterer) and Simon Bamford (Butterball Cenobite) take to the stage in the Face of Steel Theatre to discuss the 1987 horror classic.
COMPARE: What does Clive Barker (Creator of Hellraiser ) mean to you?
SB: Nothing. He’s the sweetest man. Clive Barker is a diamond geezer!
AL: Clive Barker is one of the great loves of my life.
DB: I met him in school. I spent 10 years in theatre working with him. I once saw him sitting in front of the TV, watching Ken Dodd, weeping with laughter. He was the best man at my wedding. The roaming mic goes out into the audience. Audience Question: What was your fondest memory of working on Hellraiser?
SB: Clive wanted me to wear these dentures. It makes you constantly salivate. Clive tried them and was dribbling into his hand.
CB: Seeing the chains, blood, guts… and watching Nick salivate. Being thrust up against a wall, and asked to urinate against a wall. Everyone was in hysterics. A happy moment indeed!
AQ: There’s’ a picture from Hellraiser of you wearing a hospital gown that wasn’t in the film.
DB: It depends what’s written on the page. Peter had written ‘Kirsty and Peter are trying to escape. 2 masked figures emerge.’ One asks what they’re doing, and reveals himself to be Pinhead. The crew realised they could do practical effects, but it was regarded as too horrible to show. We completed the scenes but it wasn’t shot, so wasn’t in the movie.
NV: My fondest memory was going to the toilet for the first time (in the prosthetics), being blind.
AL: Someone took their head off and did the can-can.
AQ: Did anyone take a box (the interdimensional portal device) after filming?
AL: I asked, and was laughed at. But Claire (Higgins, Julia) did!
DB: Claire was asked where the earrings were. ‘I have them, darling, they may have fallen into my handbag!’
AQ: Was the film about addiction? To pain, drugs, etc?
NV: It could be an addiction to pain, to love. Julia can’t love without this man. She’s addicted to love, like Robert Palmer.
AL: Trauma bonding.
DB: I’ve always seen it as auto crucifixion. I don’t know, you’ve stumped me. Faust said, ‘I’ve started everything. It’s not enough.’ That’s what the cenobites are doing. It’s never enough. Clive Barker would tell me that Hellraiser 3 was going to be set in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Then I thought, you bastard, you told me that just to tell me I wasn’t going to be in it!
COMPARE: I’ll put the cenobites back in the box! Thanks!
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| Doug Bradley, Pinhead from Hellraiser |
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| Ralph Ineson |
Next to stage: Yorkshire actor turned Hollywood star Ralph Ineson, William from Robert Eggers’ period horror The Witch. Through questions from the compare and the audience, we learn about his inspirations – Pete Postlethwaite is a personal hero of his – and his processes – lots of garlic got him into the character of The Green Knight.
RI: I was falling out of love with acting, then I got the script for The Witch. I read it, and thought it was incredible. The director sent me some magazine images of the film.
COMPARE: The Witch was groundbreaking!
RI: It was marketed as a horror film. It was filmed like a family drama; it didn’t feel like a horror film. We went to Ontario Canada and lived together the whole time. We bonded as a family. To believe the family was torn apart, we have to believe they were together, with a family dynamic.
COMPARE: William fights a goat called Black Phillip. How does that work?
RI: Black Philip was a specific thing: we had 3 dogs for the scene, each trained to do one of three things: one to lie down, one to run. The team had to create horns for my death scene. It put me in ER 3 times.
Ineson lifts up his shirt and shows a tattoo of a goat on his rib.
RI: That was the rib he broke. Then I went to the pub and had goat.
COMPARE: Is it welcoming to be brought back by directors?
RI: Always. I credit Eggers for the 2nd half of my career.
COMPARE: The crew of 1979 movie Alien didn’t come to set on off days as they were freaked out. Do you ever get freaked out by the set?
RI: The First Omen… So many things happened on that. I got bitten by a smelly dog. I thought, oh, there’s something strange going on here. I love horror, and think I’ve got the face for it. I don’t want to just do that, but it works.
COMPARE: Have you ever been asked to change accent to be more posh?
RI: I’ve never been asked, and I’m grateful for it. Because I have an accent, I wouldn’t be considered for certain parts. When I started working in America, I got cast as FBI. Americans don’t hear class in British accents. They don’t judge.
AQ: How do you deal with accents?
RI: It depends how you judge my success with accents! I feel I coped better with American accents.
COMPARE: What are the challenges when using your voice only? (Ineson voiced Asmodeus in The Pope’s Exorcist.)
RI: Being real. The process is kinda similar. I try to be fresh.
The compare then reads out some random industry names for Ineson to give his perspective.
COMPARE: Steven Spielberg.
RI: I worked with him on Ready Player One. He said, ‘that scene where you’re scratching your nose: your daughter doesn’t like it.’ I said, and you?’ ‘ I fucking love it!’ I thought, that’s fucking Steven Speilberg! I had to read through my notes, because I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying.
COMPARE: Ricky Gervais.
RI: Pain in the arse. Ricky liked to pinch your bum before the take. He makes you laugh, but it works. I wouldn’t like to see him do it on a film set.
COMPARE: Joel Coen.
RI: Lovely guy. He paid me the greatest compliment I’ve ever had, at a convention. (He doesn’t divulge.)
COMPARE: Jenna Coleman.
RI: Tiny. She came up to my belly button. Lovely girl though.
Horrorcon returns next year for the 11th time.
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| Predator cosplay |
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| Senator Palpatine cosplay |
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| Killer Klownz from Outer Space cosplay. Great outfit, terrible film |
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| Raoul Duke cosplay |
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| Predator cosplay |
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| Judge Death from 2000AD Cosplay |
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| Jason Voorhees cosplay |
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| Lasagne and chips |
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| Female cenobite cosplay from Hellraiser |
