Praise for Twisted Tales Events

'In the past few years Twisted Tales has become a major force in the promotion and appreciation of horror fiction. As well as putting on author readings and signings at bookshops it has expanded into organising larger events, bringing authors and critics together for discussions of the field. I've been involved in quite a few of both and have found them hugely enjoyable and stimulating - I believe the audiences did as well. May Twisted Tales continue to grow and prosper! If you love the field, support them! I do.' - Ramsey Campbell

‘Twisted Tales consistently produce well-organised events for writers and readers of horror. What really distinguishes Twisted Tales for me is the intelligent themes and investigations they pursue, and the high quality of the discussions they always stimulate. As an author I've been invited to three of their events and have been pleasantly startled, to near shocked, by the attendance levels - two out of three were even sold out. I salute anyone who contributes so much to the literary and cultural life of horror fiction.’- Adam Nevill

'Twisted Tales events are wonderful... a great way of promoting 21st century horror fiction. Supported by Waterstone's Liverpool One and really well organised, Twisted Tales brings together established names in the genre as well as new voices and of course readers. Looking forward to much more to come...' - Alison J. Littlewood

Monday 27 June 2011

"To Hell With You...." an article by Paul Kane

It’s almost twenty-five years since the world witnessed the birth of a very special genre mythology. Hellraiser, though only a small budget movie, would forever change the landscape of modern horror, flying in the face of the stalk and slasher movies so prevalent at the time and giving us characters the likes of which we’d never seen before. And it all started in the imagination of one man, a dreamer named Clive Barker; now, of course, a household name as a bestselling author, film-maker, producer and artist.

The seeds of the original film were sown when Barker was very small. For instance, his grandfather was a ship’s cook and would bring him back exotic presents from his voyages – one of which just happened to be a puzzle box from the Far East...Barker was also fascinated by a book on anatomy called De Humani Corporis Fabrica by the artist Andreas Vesalius (1543). This showed skinless figures in classical and relaxed poses, a definite inspiration for the way a certain skinless Frank would look in Hellraiser.

At Quarry Bank School in Liverpool, Barker met collaborators that would be pivotal to the series later on: Doug Bradley and Peter Atkins. But it was his talent for writing and directing plays that would bring such like-minded people together and eventually culminate in the Dog Company, a theatre group who put on plays like Dog, Nightlives and The History of the Devil – the latter again displaying his penchant for all things Hellish, as well as his love for the tradition of Grand Guignol theatre.

It was around this time that he also wrote short stories to amuse his friends in the company; tales that would end up collected in print as Clive Barker’s Books of Blood (the first three volumes of which were published by Sphere in England in 1984). Here there were also hints of what was to come in Hellraiser, particularly in stories like ‘Hell’s Event’ (demons competing for human souls) and ‘The Inhuman Condition’ (a character solves a knot puzzle and summons demonic forces). If that wasn’t enough, the writer’s inaugural book, The Damnation Game, was a take on his favourite version of the Faust myth by Christopher Marlowe. All these would end up in the melting pot when it came to penning the novella on which Hellraiser would be based.

Published in an anthology called Night Visions, alongside old friend Ramsey Campbell and Lisa Tuttle, Barker’s ‘The Hellbound Heart’ was the perfect genesis for the mythology, revolving around the Cotton family: hedonistic Frank, who solves a puzzle box he thinks will bring him the ultimate high, only to come face-to-face with demons who equate pain with pleasure; brother Rory – changed to Larry in the film; his wife Julia, who had once slept with Frank and will now do anything for him; and family friend Kirsty, changed to Larry’s daughter in Hellraiser. After film-maker George Pavlou made such disappointing adaptations of his work for Underworld (aka Transmutations) and Rawhead Rex, and with two short art-house films under his belt – Salome and The Forbidden (the latter also featuring hooded monks and a skinned man) – and with the aid of producer Christopher Figg, Barker set about finding finance for his own cinematic version of ‘The Hellbound Heart’.

Funding came in the shape of Roger Corman’s New World company, to the tune of $4.2 million, while actors attached to the project were Shakespearian thesp Clare Higgins (Julia), Sean Chapman (Frank) and heavyweight American actor Andrew Robinson from Dirty Harry (Larry). ‘Larry’s character is interesting. The way I’m approaching this is to also play the evil brother in a manner of speaking,’ said Robinson at the time. ‘For me they are one character and the way I’m playing the role is that there are seeds of Frank in Larry, even if Larry is a decent man.’ Fresh-faced US actress Ashley Laurence (Kirsty) also came on board after impressing Barker and Figg during a reading: ‘Clive tried to explain one scene to me, “Your uncle is in your father’s skin…” It seemed really weird but I just went with it. I always wanted to play a part that would allow me to explore raw emotions, not just being pretty or witty.’

To play the ‘Cenobites’, the demons that come when the Lament Configuration is solved, Barker drew on the talents of former Dog Company members Simon Bamford (Butterball), Nick Vince (Chatterer) and Doug Bradley (as ‘lead Cenobite’), who was actually given a choice of this character or removal man – which went in the end to another Dog Company member, Oliver Parker. ‘It seems odd to me now,’ said Bradley later, ‘but I very nearly settled for the latter. This was going to be my first movie, so why would I want to be buried in latex?’ Finally, for the imposing Female Cenobite, Barker employed his cousin, Grace Kirby.

In the technical stakes, make-up effects were in the safe hands of Bob Keen, who had worked on Return of the Jedi and Highlander, with stand-outs being not only Frank’s skin suits (sported by Oliver Smith), but his lengthy resurrection sequence and the Cenobite make-up. Cinematography was handled by veteran Robin Vidgeon and music by Christopher Young, who delivered a masterful score (originally the music was to have been provided by rock band Coil). And so the film was shot in London – at a reputedly haunted house in Dollis Hill, and a soundstage not far away.

‘With Hellraiser, we’re delving into the dark side of desire,’ promised Barker. ‘This is an extremely dark story, but there’s visual grace and elegance present…The imagery we’re employing is, as far as the creatures from hell are concerned, something that hasn’t been done before. They’re like sadomasochists from beyond the grave,’ coincidentally the working title of the piece. He didn’t disappoint, and upon its release Hellraiser recouped its production costs in just three short days.

Audiences were thrilled, not only by the visceral and outlandish content, but the relationships at the core of the movie and – out of all proportion to their screen time – the Cenobites. In particular Doug’s ‘Pinhead’, as they were now calling him, was singled out as a more eloquent horror icon. Unsurprisingly, plans were already afoot for a sequel. ‘Hellraiser was designed to be a showreel, and that showreel became a big success,’ said Barker, and although he still wanted to be around as executive producer he had no wish to actually write or direct a follow-up. This would be the territory of two men. Peter Atkins was an old school friend of Barker’s who had shown him some of his fiction and who Barker was convinced could come up with a great screenplay, in spite of having no experience in this field. ‘I spent an evening with Clive and he told me the story. I borrowed the previous Hellraiser script. I had no idea what scripts looked like, but I knew the rhythm of movies, and two and a half weeks later I had a first draft,’ admitted Atkins.

Tony Randel worked for New World and visited the set of the first movie – even helping out to such extent that he was given a ‘thank you’ in the end credits. ‘I wanted to bring something new to the sequel,’ said Randel. ‘I knew it would feel contextually the same because Clive and I have a similarity of styles to start with, but I wanted to enlarge the scope of the picture. It eventually encompasses the entirety of hell itself, which creates a kind of inverse claustrophobia: you’re in this vast open space where anything can happen, which can be more oppressive than being in a closed, inescapable place.’

Set in a psychiatric hospital just hours after the events in the first film, this brought back Kirsty – now on an Orpheus-like trek to rescue her father from Hell. Little does she realise, however, that the head Doctor Malahide (changed to Channard for the film, and played to perfection by British actor Kenneth Cranham) wants to visit Hell too; so much so that he brings a skinless Julia back using a mattress from the house and a very disturbed patient obsessed with self harm. Support came from the characters of young puzzle-solving mute Tiffany (Imogen Boorman) and junior doctor Kyle (William Hope from Aliens). The Cenobites were also back with a bit more time on screen, and with a new Female Cenobite (Barbie Wilde) in tow. Not only that, we got to meet their dark god, Leviathan.

Opinion was divided over Hellbound: Hellraiser II when it came out in 1988, with a strictly hate it or love it response from many. The main bone of contention appeared to be the ease with which the demon version of Channard defeated the other Cenobites, including Pinhead (a lack of time and money for a decent scrap). In fact, Pinhead’s popularity was growing by the month – so much so that plans were scrapped to make Julia the recurring villain of the franchise. ‘Clive’s original wish was that Julia…would be the Freddy Krueger of the series,’ Atkins explained. ‘What happened, of course, was the public got in the way. They fell in love with Pinhead.’ Nevertheless, it would be a few years until another sequel would come about.

When New World disintegrated, it left the question of who owned the rights to the Hellraiser series in doubt. Eventually, Lawrence Kuppin – erstwhile New World co-chairman – along with Harry Evans Sloan and Bob Bennett, set up Trans Atlantic Pictures and planned to bring out a number of horror sequels, including Hell on Earth (1992). A number of ideas had been batted around in the interim, such as an Egyptian Hellraiser and one where Pinhead would become a kind of Jason slasher figure tormenting teens. In the end Atkins came up with a Pinhead-focussed movie that explored the origins of the character, hinted at in the preliminary scenes of Hellbound. The demon’s human alter-ego, a British Captain called Elliott Spencer, attempts to stop the monster breaking free from the Pillar of Souls and causing chaos on Earth. The only person who can stop him this time is TV reporter Joey Summerskill (Terry Farrell).

Set and shot completely in the US, and with an America crew, the choice of director was, oddly, UK-born film-maker Anthony Hickox, after Randel had a disagreement with the producers. With only the horror comedies Waxwork, Waxwork II and Sundown: Vampire in Retreat to his credit, Hickox was also a controversial choice. But his fast-paced style and action-orientated set-pieces did reinvigorate the series, helping it do well at the box office. ‘Hell On Earth is exactly what I was looking for,’ said Hickox in his defence, ‘a serious horror movie… In this story Pinhead becomes a central character and the audience learns about his history. I think this film really ties up the other two. It completes the trilogy and helps fill in gaps in the entire story.’ Barker returned to help out in post-production, also promoting the movie alongside Candyman.

At a wrap party one of the cast uncannily predicted what might happen in the next film by suggesting, ‘They should send Pinhead into space!’ While this wasn’t the major impetus for Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), the storyline – which covered three different timelines and three incarnations of Lemarchand, designer of the box (all played by Bruce Ramsey) – did have a framing sequence set on a space station. The most troubled shoot in Hellraiser’s history, it was hampered by lack of money to realise Peter Atkins’ ambitious script – especially an extended version of the 18th Century section – a change in directors when effects man Kevin Yagher quit, to be replaced by Joe (Curse of Michael Myers) Chappelle, earning the film the notorious Alan Smithee moniker, various other crew changes, a fire, a strike and a case of chickenpox. ‘Essentially, I wanted to make a story about the box and be true to the fans by detailing the history of where it came from. My whole idea was that I didn’t want to do a Hellraiser IV where Pinhead slaughters a bunch of people,’ said Yagher admirably. ‘It was less painful for me to walk away than to sit there and watch it day to day. Then I could just see the final thing and say, “Well, they did this and they did that to it.” But I didn’t have to see every step. It’s like pulling butt hairs out...’

A couple of things the movie had going for it, though, were Gary Tunnicliffe’s make-ups (Gary had joined the crew for Hell on Earth and did such a great job, he’s still working on them today) and Valentina Vargas as sexy new Cenobite Angelique. ‘For the first time in my career, I’m playing a villainess in a horror movie, and I’m really loving it,’ she gushed. ‘In the third story, Angelique is a Cenobite because she’s surrendered to Pinhead, but in the first two tales, she’s like a serpent because she’ll trick, seduce and manipulate people. They’ll think they’re in Heaven until she turns around and backstabs them.’

Bloodline received only a limited theatrical release, yet it’s a testament to the Hellraiser fanbase that it did as well as it did, paving the way for another potential sequel. In spite of some excellent pitches for Hellraiser V, one of which – by the award-winning duo writer/editor and Hellraiser I-III unit publicist Stephen Jones and author Michael Marshall Smith – would have seen a return to London and to the heyday of the mythos, producers at Miramax who now owned the franchise plumped for the creative team of Scott Derrickson (writer/director) and Paul Harris Boardman (co-writer). Left to their own devices they came up with the straight to video Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), which followed the mental disintegration of policeman Thorne (Craig Sheffer) who is investigating a death linked to the box. Fans of the series were less than pleased when Pinhead only featured for a few minutes at the end of this one. Doug Bradley was also put out: ‘Dimension…sent me the screenplay and they clearly wanted my opinion and I had two opinions, one was that I didn’t think it was good enough, and the second was that I was surprised that I was in it so little.’ Derrickson’s response to criticism, which also came from Barker himself, was an open letter to Esplatter in which he stated, ‘The Hellraiser franchise had (in my opinion) travelled too far in one direction and had quite simply run out of steam. The only interesting path to take in creating another sequel seemed to be the path of total reinvention.’

Hope came in the shape of a director willing to listen more to the fans. Rick Bota set about trying to take the elements of the mythos and weave them into a worthy sequel, with the help of screenwriters Carl V. Dupre and Tim Day, who were also admirers of the earlier movies. Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002) also promised one of the most mouth-watering reunions of all time. Yes, Kirsty would be back to confront Pinhead once more! ‘I got a call from Doug Bradley at home,’ said Ashley Laurence, ‘and kind of out of the blue he said that he was doing Hellraiser and that the director was talking about the fact that he would love to bring back the Kirsty character in a cameo. And [Doug] thought he would take matters into his own hands and call me at home to see if I was interested...’

Given the popularity of her character, however, it seems now that an opportunity to expand the storyline was wasted; and even the dramatic meet-up between the two was shortened (you can see the full version in the DVD extras). In spite of being underused, Kirsty’s presence is felt in every frame, as we follow the trials and tribulations of her husband, Trevor (Dean Winters), to their ultimate and satisfactory conclusion.

So enamoured with the Hellraiser universe was Bota that he stayed on to direct the subsequent two sequels, shot back-to-back in Romania. Hellraiser: Deader was based on a Neal Marshall Stevens original script and had the mythos elements grafted, often quite clumsily, onto it. Said Stevens, ‘In addition [to] the script being changed to incorporate the Hellraiser mythology, it was also changed in locale from the lower East Side of Manhattan to London and Romania. Most painfully of all, the second writer [Day] felt the need to “sex up” my scare sequences with “boo” moments that they did not previously possess because I think such moments suck.’ Thankfully, Eight Legged Freaks’s Kari Wuhrer turned in an excellent performance as newspaper reporter Amy Klein, exploring the use of the box in underground culture but becoming entangled in the mythos herself. ‘I love, love, love Rick Bota,’ Wuhrer said of the director. ‘He is the most fun, hard working, creative, and energetic person I can say I had the pleasure of working with. He made us all laugh, he made me feel creative and strong and important, like what I had to say mattered.’

Hellraiser: Hellworld, conversely, was set once more in America and concentrated on a fansite that was offering invites to a Hellraiser party hosted by Lance Henriksen – supposedly the most ardent fan of the series ever. But when the teens who arrive are killed off in various ways, and the Cenobites show up, the boundaries between fantasy and reality look set to break down. Speaking about the project, effects man Gary Tunnicliffe offered: ‘There’s lots and lots of gore…and there will be an appearance by Chatterer. Doug is coming back to do Pinhead again.’

Right now, interest in Hellraiser is at an all-time high, and not just because of the 25th Anniversary. A ninth film in the series – Hellraiser: Revelations – was filmed at the end of 2010, a brand new imagining of the franchise is on the cards in the future from Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer, BOOM! studios have just begun releasing new Hellraiser comics material penned by Clive himself – and all that’s before we get to the Hellraiser story he has written for his next collection, and of course the long-awaited Scarlet Gospels which pits the Prince of Pain against another Barker favourite, detective Harry D’Amour from Lord of Illusions...

Whatever the future of Hellraiser is there can be no doubting its huge impact on the genre: giving us one of the most enduring franchises of all time and a true horror ‘hall of fame’ icon in the form or Pinhead. I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip to Hell as much as I have, but no tears please – you know as well as I do it’s just a waste of good suffering…

-

For an even more detailed study of all the Hellraiser movies, Paul Kane’s hardback book The Hellraiser Films and their Legacy, introduced by Doug Bradley with behind the scenes photos and Clive Barker sketches, is available now from McFarland books www.mcfarlandpub.com (as well as Waterstones.com, Amazon.co.uk, Tesco.com, W.H.Smith.co.uk and others). Visit Paul’s website at www.shadow-writer.co.uk for more details.

© Paul Kane 2011.

Revised from an article first published in Scars magazine.

--

To hear Paul Kane read from his own fiction as well as discuss the influence of Clive Barker be sure to come to our Twisted Tales event on August 5th: Hellbound Hearts.

Monday 20 June 2011

Mark Morris interviewed by David McWilliam

Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a year later saw the release of his first novel, Toady. He has since published a further sixteen novels, among which are Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge and four books in the popular Doctor Who range. His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly-acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award. His most recently published or forthcoming work includes a novella entitled It Sustains for Earthling Publications, a Torchwood novel entitled Bay of the Dead, several Doctor Who audios for Big Finish Productions, a follow-up volume to Cinema Macabre entitled Cinema Futura and a new short story collection, Long Shadows, Nightmare Light. For more information, visit Mark’s website at www.markmorriswriter.com.

DM: What were your formative influences as a horror reader?
MM: As a reader I guess I started almost exclusively with anthologies ― first the Armada Ghost and Monster and Sci-Fi collections, and then the annual Pan and Fontana Horror and Ghost story collections, which I devoured from the age of 11 or 12 onwards. Being a child of the 70s, James Herbert and Stephen King were the first horror novelists I read that I remember making a real impact on me ― to the extent that I would actively seek out their work. I wasn't that discerning in my teens, I have to say, and would basically just hoover up anything that looked scary. Because of that I read a lot of dross, along with the good stuff ― lots of ten-a-penny novels in the wake of Herbert's The Rats about killer crocodiles and killer spiders and suchlike, and also lots of stuff about haunted houses and demonic possession in the wake of The Exorcist, The Omen and The Amityville Horror.

DM: What was your first introduction to Clive Barker's work? How did it affect you and how did it alter your perceptions of what horror fiction is?
MM: I first came across the first three Sphere paperback volumes of The Books of Blood in a second-hand bookshop in Huddersfield around, I guess, 1985. I'd only discovered Ramsey Campbell's work a year or so earlier, thanks to reading Stephen King's Danse Macabre, and his skewed, disturbing vision of the world had absolutely blown me away. I suspect I was probably looking for more of Ramsey's books (some of them were hard to track down back then) and picked up Clive's stuff because the books looked interesting, and because the first volume contained an effusive introduction by Ramsey. I read the first three volumes one after the other over the next couple of weeks, and, as with Ramsey's stuff, was utterly blown away by Clive's audacious ideas and imagery, and by what seemed to me a totally original and fresh approach to many of the familiar tropes of horror fiction. Although I'd been reading horror stories since my teens, those couple of years (84-85) were like an epiphany to me. Suddenly, through reading Ramsey's and Clive's work, the boundaries of the genre seemed to expand, to become limitless. Horror, to me, suddenly became about far more than just scaring people; it became about subverting expectations, exploring the imagination, trying to push the parameters as far as they would go. I found it incredibly exciting and inspirational.

DM: In what ways do you consider yourself to be influenced by Clive's work as a writer of horror fiction?
MM: I think my first couple of novels, in particular, were hugely influenced by both Clive's and Ramsey's work. As I said above, it was all about exploring the limits of my imagination, pushing the boundaries as far as they would go. Both books are fairly traditional in structure, in that they're set in small communities which are besieged and corrupted by something from outside, something terrible and evil, but within that traditional structure are wildly surreal, phantasmagorical set-pieces.

DM: Were you attracted to Clive’s evocative body horror or to the huge, cosmic scope of his mythologies (or both)?
MM: I’d say probably both. It was the whole package. I loved Clive’s vision, but the sheer inventiveness of his body horror I also found startling. I love The Books of Blood and Clive’s first two novels – The Damnation Game and Weaveworld. I love the way he almost mythologises the body, sees flesh – and more particularly, what can be done to the flesh – as a way of gaining enlightenment or status or of transporting oneself to a different realm. With the Cenobites, for instance, there was a sense that by torturing their bodies (or having them tortured), and by embracing that pain, they had broken through some kind of barrier, achieved a state of ‘otherness’. Clive embraced that whole sado-masochistic idea of the exquisiteness and attraction of pain with a relish and an inventiveness I had never encountered before, and I found the audaciousness of that both original and thrilling.

DM: What do you think of the numerous adaptations of Clive's works in various different media?
MM: I'm only aware of the Hellraiser movies and the Nightbreed movie and some of the early comic book adaptations of his Books of Blood stories. I love the first Hellraiser movie, because it is wholly Clive’s vision, and captures that atmosphere of both beauty and degradation which go hand-in-hand in his work. After that the franchise (like so many before it) subscribes to the law of diminishing returns. Because of Clive’s involvement the second film has some interesting and wonderfully inventive ideas, but the later films, in which he is only minimally involved, lose that sense of particular menace and dread and reduce Pinhead and his cohorts to the roles of bog-standard (and sometimes wise-cracking) demonic entities.  As for other adaptations, I loved the novella, Cabal, again for its sheer inventiveness, and thought that the Nightbreed movie captured the imagery beautifully (in fact, I remember buying a book of all the different creature creations and poring over it, entranced by the ideas). Having said that, the actual film itself, I must admit, didn't make a huge impression on me – though perhaps I ought to re-watch it and re-assess it, as I haven’t seen it for many years. The comic books are fine ― and contain some great artwork from the likes of Les Edwards and John Bolton ― but I'm not really a comics fan, and so would always rather read the original stories.

DM: A lot of your writing over the past few years has been devoted to Torchwood and Doctor Who novels. Do you see this as a continuation of your earlier horror work or as a new direction? What are the appeals of writing within a pre-existing fictional world?
MM: In some ways Doctor Who felt a little bit like coming home to me. It was the first genre material – by which I mean book, movie or TV show – I remember being frightened by. I was four and saw a story called "The Abominable Snowmen" which contained robotic Yeti, which terrified me. Over the next few years I was also terrified by the Cybermen, the Autons and the Silurians… but in such a way that every week I was eager to go back for more. My love for Doctor Who has never diminished, but in my adolescence the programme also became a springboard to a plethora of other scary genre delights – the Pan and Fontana anthologies, as I’ve already mentioned, Hammer and Amicus movies, and other TV shows such as Brian Clemens’ Thriller and Nigel Kneale’s Beasts.

So yes, I see my Doctor Who and Torchwood work as very much a continuation of my earlier work. And in fact I intertwine the two – I certainly haven’t left the horror genre behind. It’s harder to get horror novels published these days, as the prose fiction side of the genre is in the doldrums and has been for a long time. But I have a novel out there doing the rounds at the moment, which is a strange combination of horror, crime and sf, a new horror novella due out soon from Earthling Publications in the US called It Sustains, and a new collection of my short horror fiction due out from PS Publishing in September called Long Shadows, Nightmare Light. Aside from this I have stories either recently out, or upcoming, in various anthologies – one of which, ‘Fallen Boys’, which appeared in the Solaris anthology, The End of the Line, having the rare distinction of being picked up both by Ellen Datlow for The Best Horror of the Year Vol 3 and Steve Jones for Best New Horror 22.

And also my Doctor Who and Torchwood work continues apace, and hopefully will continue to do so. But these aren’t the only ‘franchises’ I’ve worked within. I’ve also written a Hellboy novel and a Sherlock Holmes story, and I have one or two other projects connected to existing franchises in the pipeline. The appeal of working within these existing boundaries is the challenge of adding to the mythos (if you want to call it that) and of wrapping yourself so completely in the world that you know it inside out. With Doctor Who and Torchwood it’s easy – both shows are ingrained into my DNA – but with other things it’s a case of immersing myself in the fiction, getting a feel for the characters, the tone, the style, the kinds of stories they tell.

DM: Speaking of which, how did you come to be involved with the Hellbound Hearts anthology? What was it like to go back to one of your formative influences and work with his most famous creation?
MM: I’ve known Paul and Marie [Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan, editors of the volume] for a long time, and they simply approached me and asked if I’d be interested. As I say, I love the Hellraiser movies – particularly the first one – and the whole atmosphere of mystique which surrounds the Cenobites, that hellish culture of dread and pain. And what appealed particularly was that there was huge scope to do something new – to create a new Cenobite, a new set of rules, a new part of the mythos. It was great fun to do, to let my imagination fly, to push the boundaries, to be perhaps more graphic and out there than I would normally be in my fiction. Sometimes themed anthologies can seem a little restrictive, a little samey, but that wasn’t the case here. The parameters were so wide that I think most of the stories in the anthology can be seen both as Cenobite stories, but also as stand-alone stories in their own right.

Monday 13 June 2011

NEW EVENT: Hellbound Hearts: The Influence of Clive Barker on 21st Century Horror

It is our pleasure to be able to announce the next Twisted Tales event!

On Friday 5th August at 6pm we are proud to be presenting...

Hellbound Hearts:
The Influence of Clive Barker on 21st Century Horror

Aside from Twisted Tales' resident legendary writer, RamseyCampbell, Liverpool has also produced another great master of horror: Clive Barker. Barker's fiction came to international attention with the publication of his Books of Blood in the mid 1980s. His status was considerably enhanced when he adapted his novella The Hellbound Heart into the film Hellraiser, which conquered the world in 1987 and went on to spawn many sequels, as well as a series of comics that explored its mythology. Clive also directed cult film classics Nightbreed (1990) and Lord of Illusions (1995). He designed the creatures and wrote the stories for two successful computer games: Undying (2001) and Jericho (2007) and is the author of many novels, including Weaveworld (1987) and Imajica (1991).

Join Twisted Tales for an evening celebrating and discussing Barker's enduring legacy at the UK's official launch of the Hellbound Hearts anthology- a collection of stories from some of the top names in contemporary horror that explore the Hellraiser mythology. Featuring readings by:

Mark Morris: Award-winning and bestselling author of The Immaculate, Torchwood: Bay of the Dead and contributor to Hellbound Hearts.

Paul Kane: Co-editor of Hellbound Hearts and award-winning author of The Hellraiser Films and their Legacy and the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy.

Marie O'Regan: Co-editor of Hellbound Hearts and award-nominated author of Mirror Mere.

Followed by a Q&A with the authors, who will be joined by Ramsey Campbell to discuss the influence of Barker's work on 21st century horror.

There will then be a signing session with all four authors.

Hellbound Hearts:
The Influence of Clive Barker on 21st Century Horror
Waterstone’s Liverpool One
6-8pm, Friday August 5th
Tickets £2*
*redeemable against any horror bought on the night.
To book tickets please visit the Waterstone's store or call (0151) 709 98 20

Link to Official Facebook Event.

Thursday 9 June 2011

Alex Davis interviewed by David McWilliam about Alt.Fiction

Alt.Fiction is kicking off in a fortnight, for its fifth year, with a fantastic weekend for readers and writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror. It brings together some of the UK's leading talent, and presents a two-day programme of readings, panels, workshops, film, podcasts and much more, giving you the chance to hear from your favourite authors, find out more about the world of publishing and learn more about the writing process. It's truly a weekend not to be missed for book lovers and writers alike.
 

This year’s Guests of Honour are bestselling science fiction author Alastair Reynolds and acclaimed comic book writer and novelist Dan Abnett. They will joined by speakers Tony Ballantyne, Keith Brooke, Mark Chadbourn, Stephen Deas, Paul Finch, John Jarrold, Juliet McKenna, Mark Morris, Adam Nevill, Mark Charan Newton, Sarah Pinborough, Robert Shearman, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Conrad Williams, Chris Wooding and many more. Full details, including ticket prices and contact information can be found at the foot of this post.

Our own David McWilliam caught up with festival Co-ordinator Alex Davis to ask him a few questions about Alt.Fiction and how it's developed over the years. 


DM: What is Alt.Fiction? How did it begin?
AD: Alt.Fiction began life as a one-day science-fiction, fantasy and horror event, and kicked off in 2005 when I was working for Derby City Council. Alt.Fiction ran for three years as a Council event, and always had great support from the arts team at the time. When I left the Council, that obviously left a gaping hole in terms of delivery, but luckily enough Writing East Midlands were aware of the potential of the event and were really keen to get involved. As such, we ran a fourth event under their aegis before kicking things up a notch for 2010/2011, bringing together a year-round programme of events with a bigger and better weekend event as our flagship.

DM: What is your role in Alt.Fiction?
AD: I work freelance for Writing East Midlands as Alt.Fiction Co-ordinator. That means a whole raft of things, and can entail roles including programmer, marketing officer, author liaison, fundraising and all manner of things in between. It's great to have so much support from Writing East Midlands, as it makes a tough job a great deal easier!

DM: Derby doesn't have much of a history when it comes to literary events; what do you consider to be the driving force behind the festival's continued success?
AD: Lots of things really – we've always had great support from the genre community, we've always had a strong base and a supportive organisation to work with and we've had a lot of support from publishers. I also like to think audiences feel in safe hands – I can be a pretty obsessive organiser, which is a good trait in running something like this! If things go smoothly, and people have a good time, then the event can only get stronger. I think Derby in itself is a good asset – we're very central in the UK, and we have a fantastic venue in the shape of QUAD, plus the city is building its cultural side all the time.

DM: When I attended Alt.Fiction, I was struck how outward-looking it was as an event, and how geared it was towards welcoming new readers and writers, as well as established members of the speculative fiction community. Is this something you consciously aim for?
AD: Yeah, absolutely – all of my background prior to Alt.Fiction had been in more general literature festivals and conferences, and essentially I was trying to capture some of that vibe but give it the distinctive flavour that only genre can. I came to the convention scene a bit later, and I have an absolutely huge respect for the work that goes into them and the quality that they consistently deliver. But what I've found is that Alt.Fiction is a great starting point for people who may not be aware of conventions, or are nervous of attending a convention. As such, I think the event is starting to serve an important purpose in getting people to take their first steps into the genre community.

DM: Do you have any last minute surprises in store for Alt.Fiction 2011? If so, can you give Twisted Tales readers some hints?
AD: Our last surprise was just confirming the film programme for this year, which we've been working on with Mayhem Horror Festival, and we've got some fantastic ghost story screenings, a double bill of Val Lewton's Cat People films and an early UK preview of Hobo with a Shotgun, which isn't due out until the end of July, so that's pretty exciting stuff!

-
 
Alt.Fiction Festival 2011
Saturday 25th June, 10am - Midnight
Sunday 26th June, 10am - 5pm

QUAD, Derby

Weekend pass £45, Saturday pass £30, Sunday pass £20

Contact the QUAD Box Office on 01332 290 606.

Visit altfiction.co.uk to find out about Alt.Fiction's year-long programme of events.

Monday 6 June 2011

The Devil’s Backbone reviewed by Enrique Ajuria Ibarra

The Devil’s Backbone
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Released in 2001
Certificate: 15

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is most widely recognised for his hit blockbuster films, such as the Hellboy series and Blade 2, and also because of the huge praise and critical acclaim received for his 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth [review]. With a rich and elaborate visual style, Del Toro’s work showcases his keen interest in the monstrous, the vampiric and the supernatural, as he delves into and explores them through the use of popular culture and folklore.  However, insufficient attention has been given to his early work; when assessing his contributions to 21st century horror it is worth considering the high quality of the director’s productions before his global success; such as The Devil’s Backbone (2001). In this film, Del Toro creates a horrifying atmosphere, as a ghost’s insistent haunting is situated within the pain and desolation that a civil war leaves on its people. Produced by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, this film provided the ideal springboard for Del Toro’s future, more popular and more complex films.  Just like his other films, The Devil’s Backbone is influenced by the director’s fascination for classical horror, the macabre and popular fiction. With its carefully crafted dark scenes and violent events, it masterfully offers a painful, yet highly attractive, portrayal of how people react to the threat of others in times of raging political and social instability.

The film tells the story of Carlos, a newly arrived boy at Doña Carmen’s and Dr Casares’s orphanage and refuge for children whose Republican parents fight or have died in the Spanish Civil War.  Shortly after his arrival, Carlos sees a ghost, which the rest of the children – who cannot see him, but apparently have heard his voice – call ‘the one who sighs’. Determined to find out who this spectre is, Carlos slowly uncovers disturbing secrets about the adults and other boys who live there: Carmen is a widowed woman who has decided to keep on running the school her late husband had opened, even though it has become a heavy burden for her; Dr Casares is an Argentinean who has decided to stay in Spain because he is madly in love with Carmen; Jaime is the leader of the boys, who takes to bullying Carlos, yet is obviously afraid of someone else in the complex. Finally, there is Jacinto, the caretaker, who does not bother to hide his disdain for the school and its residents. After being persistently haunted, Carlos discovers that Jacinto has been trying to steal gold hidden in the building’s grounds.  When the Civil War gets too close to the walls of the orphanage, prompting Carmen and Casares to escape with the children, Jacinto decides to take more drastic measures to get what he wants. After a violent fight that shatters the orphanage and kills the adults, Carlos learns of the identity and the origin of the ghost. Once the mystery of the haunting has been solved, Carlos, Jaime and a group of children decide to put matters to rest once and for all in a climatic, spectacular and bloodstained finale.

In The Devil’s Backbone, Guillermo del Toro works with the traditional conventions of the ghost story: in an old building there resides a spectral figure that haunts the current inhabitants of the place and this figure will not rest until the circumstances of his untimely death, a mystery or a secret for the haunted characters, are uncovered and avenged. Del Toro heightens these haunting sensations through the isolated setting and by enhancing the otherworldliness of the ghostly apparition with low-key lighting and unearthly tones. Carlos usually encounters the spectre at night and always when he is alone. The ghost also leaves terrifying signs of his passing, such as footsteps on wet floors and an eerie trail of blood in the air. An unsettling sensation of being observed is established as the spectre is always seen looking at Carlos from dark thresholds, keyholes and basements. The camerawork is also remarkably effective in generating unease: most of The Devil’s Backbone is filmed using dolly shots – seamless and very smooth camera movements – that glide through every part of the orphanage like a silent and invisible otherworldly observer.  By using such simple techniques, the film reinforces in the audience that shuddering sensation of something ghostly watching the characters’ every movement and action.

These floating camera movements, combined with the implied presence of the ghost in the shadows, establish the impression that the spectre always stands at physical borders, aware of his non-corporeal state. But at the same time, he slowly begins to incorporate himself into the physical world as the film develops. Initially, the ghost is perceived only for a brief instant, but as the story and plot unfold, he increasingly manifests as a more concrete and material being to Carlos. Having been haunted since he first arrived at the school, Carlos decides to confront the spectre to try to understand what he wants. The ghostly child expresses a need to wreak revenge on the one who took his life. Significantly, the ghost has chosen to appear only to Carlos, casting doubt over whether he is real: in the end, he might just be a figure that came to exist in Carlos’s mind after his traumatic experiences and hardships in and outside the school.

That the main characters in the film live under the constant fear of a war raging on outside the walls of the school is highlighted by an artefact that looms over the very centre of the building’s courtyard: a deactivated bomb that fell on the night that a young boy disappeared.  The children believe the dormant bomb is really alive and that it whispers and echoes secrets and truths, if you ask the right questions. Del Toro chose the historical era of the Spanish Civil War as a constrictive and stressful setting in which to develop this compelling ghost story. Considered to be one of the most devastating events in European history, the Spanish Civil War has left its imprint by defining Spain’s culture as one marked by the haunting resonances of the people who died and disappeared during the conflict. The Devil’s Backbone not only reflects on the conditions of war and violence that affect individuals, but also society at large. The characters in the film all represent a political faction of the Civil War.  Most obviously, Carmen and Dr Casares represent the liberals; Jacinto, the military fascists and the children, the Spanish people themselves. Paired with the spectral presence of the ghost, personal grudges and interactions between all the characters establish the focal message of the film: war is traumatic, and more than that, it is culturally haunting; repeating itself in memories, actions and reactions that seek to speak of silences and secrets that demand to be told, avenged and laid to rest.  Mirroring the ghost’s appeals to Carlos to avenge his death, Spanish culture is haunted by those who died and disappeared during the Civil War.

The main appeal of The Devil’s Backbone is its masterful balance of horrifying ghost story and traumatic war drama. Guillermo del Toro draws on his considerable knowledge of the history of horror cinema, admitting in interviews to have been greatly influenced by horror classics from the sixties and seventies, such as the Hammer Studio films and Italian directors Mario Bava and Dario Argento, when he created this haunting narrative. These influences are clearly discernible in the film’s setting as well as the development of the characters. Several scenes are evocative of classic Italian gialli such as The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Suspiria and Inferno: the unsolved horror mystery is infused with a palette of bright colours, excessive violence and copious amounts of blood and wounded flesh, just like its Italian counterparts. Del Toro has also confessed to have been influenced by classic Hollywood Western films such as The Searchers and those directed by Anthony Mann; the desert landscape in The Devil’s Backbone is reminiscent of the isolated settings of the Old West. With convincing and outstanding performances from the young actors, and with the participation of notable film and television stars from both Spain and Argentina, del Toro’s film lives up to the director’s very own personal goal: to create an appealing spaghetti western/horror hybrid. The Devil’s Backbone is a successful horror ghost story because it keeps reminding us of the universal appeal of the ghost: how it comes to culturally stay and permanently haunt us with such traumatic delight.

-

Enrique Ajuria Ibarra is a doctoral candidate at Lancaster University. His thesis project analyses the social and political criticism found in fantasy and horror films from Mexico and Spain, and he has particularly done extensive research on the films of Guillermo del Toro. He has participated in several conferences both in the UK and abroad and has published book and film reviews for The Gothic Imagination and Re/Action Magazine websites. His main interests lie in the use of fantasy, horror and gothic theories to explore particular examples from film and literature, both in Spanish and English.