Join Pat Higgins (“One of the Masters of Horror” – The Dark Side) for this special quiz show that will test the horror knowledge of both our special guests and our audience! From mainstream hits to festival favourites, from Suspiria to The Snarling… How much do our guests really know? Maybe they can ask the audience! That Bloody Quiz Show sets out to sort the monsters from the maniacs.
In a new exclusive interview on Blazing Minds, I got a chance to ask filmmaker Pat Higginsa few questions about his latest interactive quiz show ‘Pat Higgins presents: That Bloody Quiz Show‘, which you can see live at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 17th January at 15:00hrs.
Q. As a regular at Horror-on-Sea, you are well known for your interactive filmmaking talks ‘Pat Higgins Masterclass’. However, in 2026 you are changing the format with a new interactive event called ‘That Bloody Quiz Show’. Can you tell us what we can expect?
A. Well, I did Masterclass sessions at the Southend Film Festival for two years before Horror-on-Sea even started, so that’s been 14 different filmmaking/screenwriting talks on consecutive years and I felt it was time to try something wildly different and hopefully have some fun. We’ve been trying to plan out a really cool and interesting horror quiz show; it’s not like a pub quiz, it’s more like watching a taping of a TV show. Except we’re going to involve the audience a bit more than that might suggest!
Q. Whilst it will have the normal audience interactions we have come to expect, you now have special guests who will be participating in the quiz. Can you tell us a bit about the guests and how they were chosen?
A. Well, we wanted people with a real knowledge of the genre who were happy to come and test that knowledge onstage in front of an audience, so that narrowed it down a bit! Plus we wanted guests who were actively fun. We’re not actually revealing who they are yet, though, of course!
Q. A horror quiz can cover a vast range of topics and subgenres. If someone is looking to swot up for your quiz, do you have any tips on what they could be looking for?
A. We’ve got a round that’s very focused on long-running franchise sequels, and a really special music round which I’m tremendously looking forward to. It’s really hard to work out that line between ‘too easy’ and ‘too obscure’ when it comes to identifying film soundtracks. I mean, everyone knows how the score to, say, JAWS (1975) goes, but would you really be able to identify the score to THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991)? I wouldn’t! Hopefully we’ve walked that line. Plus we’ve got a final round I’m really proud of, but that’s another one of those pesky things I’m not going to revel yet. Probably because I’m reserving the right to change it at the last minute if the technology goes wrong, hah!
Q. The Pat Higgins Masterclass have been a regular fixture of Horror-on-Sea. What made you decide to do something different, and can we expect to see the masterclass return in the future?
A. Oh yeah, I imagine the masterclass will be back once I’ve found something new to say. I just figured that it’d be fun to try something different!
Q. We all loved the scissor man when he was used as part of the ‘Pat Higgins Masterclass’, can we expect him to make a return at some point?
A. Oh God, I love the Scissors Man too (played by the brilliant Paul Cousins). The Fear and Film one (which he was part of) is still up on YouTube, I think. Thing is, the prosthetic make-up was an absolute ball-ache, and the way we did it in the first couple (where we were synchronising pre-filmed bits of the character onscreen with my own live stuff at the festival) made everything madly stressful. It was also the enemy of ad-libbing and meant I had to know the timings of absolutely everything, which meant I had to be way more organised than I am naturally. So he’s currently hibernating. But never say never!
Q. Circling back around once again to one of your previous projects, The House of the Witch Pit has been released for a limited time on 2 occasions. Once during a sold-out screening at Horror-on-Sea in 2016; where after being show, the master and the only back up copy of this version was destroyed on stage. Later a new edit of the film was released online and was made available for one day only. For those who may have missed the previous showings (myself included), how different are these two edits of the film and can we expect to see a new version released again will be more accessible?
A. We did a whole new bunch of additional shooting in 2019 for a version that’s never yet been seen anywhere. I did have a plan that a final definitive version would be completed for the tenth anniversary, but seeing as that’s next month and it still doesn’t exist I guess I missed that deadline! I still think about the project most days, but I don’t want to lock it until I’ve done some sort of justice to all the different things it’s been along the way.
The original cut was structured like narrative cinema and the version that was on Amazon for a single night was more like a documentary. It’s my own ever-changing urban legend, and I guess I’m a bit reluctant to let that go until I’m 100% sure that it’s saying what I want it to say.
Q. Do you have any other project which you are working on?
A. I just finished up my MA in Screenwriting, and the final thesis was a screenplay called CHAINSAW FAIRYTALE which I’m really proud of. If you’re curious, the screenplay (along with an essay about the rewrite process) is at https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/36644/
I’m still investigating the best way to get that in front of the cameras with a budget that’ll do it justice.
We’re also flirting with the idea of doing a third Death Tale movie (following up BORDELLO DEATH TALES (2009) and NAZI ZOMBIE DEATH TALES (2012)) but we’ve been saying that for at least a decade now, so we’ll just have to see!
Q. If someone was looking to get into filmmaking, what advice would you give them?
A. Be lovely to everyone you work with and never, ever give up.
You can watch the original live performance of ‘Fear & Film – Pat Higgins Live at Horror-on-Sea 2018’ on YouTube here
You can see Pat Higgins presents: That Bloody Quiz Show live at The Horror-on-Sea Film Festival on Saturday 17th January at 15:00hrs.
You can find out more about Pat Higgins presents: That Bloody Quiz Show 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!
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