Directors: Alexander Churchyard, Michael Holiday
Writers: Alexander Churchyard (narration), Michael Holiday (interview questions), Hannah Paterson (additional material)
Starring: Paul Cotgrove, Eileen Daly, Dani Thompson, Pat Higgins, MJ Dixon, Michael Fausti, Louise Nosbod, Debbie Lane
Horror-on-Sea: 13 Bloody Years” is a documentary celebrating the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival, it features numerous figures from the indie horror community, including directors and actors, and showcases the festival’s impact on its community.
In a new exclusive interview on Blazing Minds, I got a chance to ask Co-Writer/Directors Alexander Churchyard and Michael Holiday a few questions about their film ‘Horror-on-Sea: 13 Bloody Years‘, which will have its World Premiere at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 24th January at 20:00hrs.
Q. Your new documentary film Horror-on-Sea: 13 Bloody Years has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival. Can you tell us what we can expect?
Mike: 13 bloody years is a fun look at how Horror-on-Sea came about, its place within the wider UK film scene and the incredible community that has sprung up around it. Horror-on-Sea is more than just a film festival to a lot of people, and I hope this documentary captures that spirit and importance.
But you can expect everything from stories of odd movies, projector mishaps and even a ferret shitting everywhere.
Q. How did the idea for the film first come about and why did you choose Horror-on-Sea on its 13th year?
Alex: The idea came about because we’ve been working on a documentary Shoestring which is about UK micro-budget horror filmmaking. We’d agreed it would have a Horror-on-Sea section, and we felt as though we could perhaps turn that into a short documentary on its own to submit to the festival as a surprise to Paul (Cotgrove). We had been talking about it for a couple of years, but with the 13th anniversary approaching, we decided it was perfect timing. The approach changed a little bit as we mostly focused on getting this documentary done, while filming some bits of Shoestring at the same time.
Mike: Yeah it was very much intended to just be a nice thing for Paul as a way to say thank you for all the support he has given us over the years. But it very quickly morphed into a more serious project than we had expected.
Alex: And we ended up roping Paul in from the off and building a lot of it around the direction of his
interview.
Q. Did the documentary change from your original concept once you started to conduct the interviews?
Alex: Well, mostly that it’s become an 80-minute feature and not a 10-minute short. So many people got in touch and wanted to be involved and then we realised we just had a wealth of material, and we wouldn’t really be doing the festival justice by condensing this into what would have been a short promo.
Mike: I think it’s been a long time since either one of us has done a straight talking-head style documentary. So I think there was a bit of a learning curve for us along the way. What we maybe thought was the story and how the film would come together is probably quite different to what the finished product is.
Q. How many participants were involved in the documentary and was there anyone you wanted for the film but were unable to include?
Alex: We mostly relied on advertising for participants and hoping they’d message or email us – there were a few people we grabbed while at another festival for quick interviews and then some people that Paul asked us to include, but the vast majority were people who wanted to get involved because they love the festival. We even had people such as Sam Mason Bell or Alice Ryan who wanted to participate, but we couldn’t make it work logistically, so they got their own crews to film their interviews. We also got quick video messages sent in from lots of people as well.
I think it just goes to show people’s love for the festival and for Paul really.
Q. How did you decide on who should be included?
Mike: We had a handful of people we really wanted to get. Just so that we had some balance, it couldn’t just be people that work at the festival, filmmakers, actors or fans. It needed some representation from all aspects of the community that make up Horror-on-Sea.
In terms of who actually made it into the finished film though, that’s a bit more complicated. As Alex said, this was intended to be a 10-minute short that turned into a feature length documentary. We ended up sitting down and having conversations with so many people and ended up with hours upon hours of footage. I mentioned already the slight learning curve we found to this and I think that really came out in the edit.
There are conversations we had with people that were really strong and interesting, yet they only end up in the film for a few seconds. There’s something really interesting about piecing together a documentary, it’s not just a case of picking your best moments, you’ve got to try and craft the narrative as you go. So it’s not always about picking the best lines from an interview, but which clips tell the story you are trying to tell and which clips lead you into the next part of that story. I think as a result some people will likely be disappointed if they don’t make the final cut, but I will say every single interview we did was valuable to making this. Just having those conversations and revisiting those memories helped us understand what the story of Horror-on-Sea really was, so I hope that comes out in the finished product. But we could easily go back to this in the future and produce an even longer version (just from the footage we have) if the interest was there from the audience.
There’s still so many people we would have liked to have involved but it just got to a point where we
had to force ourselves to stop filming, otherwise we’d still be shooting interviews now!
Q. Did you experience any issues whilst making the documentary?
Alex: Not really with the making of it – we did originally have a concept whereby we had Mark Lawrence as a “Horror-on-Sea Expert” and it was a bit of a piss-take of the traditional expert character you get in documentaries. It was quite funny, but ultimately, we replaced it with a voiceover from Dani Thompson as it fit better tonally and also, we ended up getting an actual expert in the form of Darrell Buxton. Mark still features loads in the documentary though, so I am sure he won’t be too wounded.
Mike: Honestly, in terms of production it is probably one of the most relaxing projects we’ve ever done. A lot of it was just sitting down and chatting to people about a festival we all love. So it was really a lot of fun. The only issue was likely that we shot a lot more than we intended to.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
Alex: Rightly or wrongly we didn’t really have a predetermined look for the documentary as we shot across a lot of different locations with varying amounts of kit – I think a lot of it was experimentation as well to see what might work for Shoestring. I was really pleased with how Paul Cotgrove’s interview looked and a lot of the ones we shot in the same location (The White Bus Cinema) and I tried to emulate that look going forward. We also shot Darrell Buxton’s interview at the Lumiere Cinema in one of the actual screens, I think that one looks great too!
A few we had to shoot in a sort of white broom cupboard basically, but hopefully people can see past the aesthetics of those and enjoy the interviews themselves. As mentioned a few interviews were shot remotely by different crews; Alice Ryan’s interview that was shot by Dan Keeble is possibly the best-looking interview out of the lot, so kudos to Ark Pictures.
In terms of influences – we watched a few talking-head documentaries that we thought might inspire us such as Splatterfest Exhumed and Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, whether they did have an influence, I am not sure ultimately. I think there’s a bit of Channel 4’s The Hotel in there though.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments from filming?
Mike: I think sitting down with the Grime Horror guys was one of my personal highlights. They were one of only a few people that I really didn’t know before shooting their interview and they were just full of some many fun stories from the early days of the festival. Only a small bit of it makes it into the finished film but it was a lot of fun to shoot. I also really loved sitting down with Darrell Buxton who is just an absolute fountain of film knowledge and on a selfish level I could have listened to him talk about all this for even more hours than we did.
Then of course there was our interview with the man himself Paul Cotgrove. We spent a full afternoon with Paul talking about his career and the festival itself. Again it almost feels a shame how cut up his interview is to make it fit into the wider documentary. We could likely put together a documentary just on the stuff we covered in his interview alone, but maybe that’s something we can put out further down the line.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?
Mike: I hope it just captures a small part of the spirit of what this festival is. It’s at times crazy, chaotic, unpredictable. But it’s also a place that gives anyone the opportunity to step up and present their work to an open minded and fun audience. Trying to sum up everything about Horror-on-Sea in just 80 minutes is an impossible feat, but hopefully we pique people’s attention just enough to come on and down and experience it for themselves. And for the regulars, well hopefully this film will bring back a lot of fond memories and spark a lot of conversations in the bar afterwards. I really hope it feels like a celebration of everything that Paul and the team have achieved over the last 13 years.
Q. Would you consider doing a similar documentary, and if so would you consider doing anything differently?
Alex: I probably would have started it sooner – the whole thing has been done in under a year and most of the editing was done within the last few months. It’s been a lot of work while juggling lots of life commitments.
Mike: I actually find something quite freeing from a creative standpoint of just throwing yourself into a topic and figuring out what the film will be as you go. So maybe I wouldn’t do anything different.
Although I probably wouldn’t tell Paul it was only going to be ten minutes long next time. Might end up getting thrown off the pier.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
Alex: Shoestring, writing a feature and also have Video Shop 2 (2024) to release on Blu-ray this year.
Mike: Yep, Shoestring and another documentary that will be horror related but in a very different style.
Q. If someone was looking to get into filmmaking, what advice would you give them?
Alex: Well it would probably be appropriate to say: come to Horror-on-Sea! As you’ll learn in the documentary; you will be surrounded by likeminded folks – you’ll find inspiration from the films Paul
puts on and you might even meet an actor or future crew member whilst at the bar.
Mike: What he said. If you want to make films and are willing to get stuck into a scene that is free of expectations and pretension, then Horror-on-Sea is the place for you. Even just coming along and soaking it up will likely set you on a path to make something of your own. That’s exactly how we started out and it’s a story you will hear time and time again in the documentary. And the best way to start on that path would be to come and see Horror-On-Sea: 13 Bloody Years screening at Horror- on-Sea on Saturday the 24th of January. I hear tickets are still available…
Horror-on-Sea: 13 Bloody Years will have its World Premiere at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 24th January at 20:00hrs.
You can find out more about Horror-on-Sea: 13 Bloody Years and purchase tickets for the film here
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
