Celluloid Screams: Ten Magnificent Memories – Part One

From its first weekend edition back in 2009, Celluloid Screams quickly developed into one of the standout horror film festivals in the UK – hell, let’s say one of the standout festivals in the entire World while I’m at it – and has constantly looked to reinvent itself every single year. I was born in South Yorkshire, I live close to Sheffield, and I worked in Sheffield for almost twenty years, so it’s my home festival and I’m fiercely protective of it. I will often abbreviate it to Cell in an irritatingly chummy way, so apologies in advance.

I could bang on about my horror film family but everyone does that about every genre festival so instead, here are ten of my own Celluloid Screams memories from across the years, arbitrarily ranked to generate some kind of artificial, reality TV-type suspense. These could all be number one and there are countless amazing things happening every year at Cell but, you know, lists and clickbait. This is also why I’m shamelessly splitting the article in two. On with the reminiscing…

10: MARTY, THE MARTYRS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT BEAR

When the 2025 Celluloid Screams line-up was announced, one title above any other generated a collective gasp from those who had previously seen it and that was Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs. It was a film I had vowed never to watch again, not because it was below par – it’s incredible, of course – but it elicited the same kind of reaction I experienced when watching Salo, which was “Watched it once, that’s quite enough.”

Then you sit back and think “Martyrs? In a 4k restoration? On a big screen?” and your curiosity gets the better of you. Your stance goes from not wanting to even glimpse a frame of it by accident to it being the must see of the festival. Also, there’s always the fascination of watching the reactions of people who would be seeing it for the first time. Would it have the same power to shock as it did seventeen years previously?

As the well being of the audience is always paramount, and Martyrs is certainly apt to be given a fairly long list of warnings as regards its content, Cell went one step further in comforting distressed viewers as they staggered out of the screening. At the top of the stairs, there he was – Marty, The Martyrs Emotional Support Bear. A bright yellow, six foot, furry fever dream whose sole purpose was to allow you to hug it out. And hug it out I did.

9: SPECIAL GUESTS – LET’S BE HONEST, THIS IS ABOUT CATRIONA MACCOLL

Over the years, a succession of amazing guests have travelled to Sheffield to introduce their features, shorts and television shows and to participate in the wider festival. It’s heartening to see just how many of these people have hung around for the entire weekend and embraced the spirit of Celluloid Screams. It’s something of a cliché to say that horror film makers are the nicest people in the world but going on the evidence of the last decade and a half (and a bit) there’s nothing to convince me that isn’t 100% accurate.

Rewind all the way back to 2010, when Lucio Fulci’s gory City Of The Living Dead took its place in the line-up. I’d have been there to see it on a cinema screen whatever, but the added attraction was a Q&A with star Catriona MacColl. At that point in time, I hadn’t so much as been in the same room as someone who’d featured in a film I loved, let alone sat across from in the Showroom Bar over a drink or met for a catch up over breakfast. No, I was as green as they came and the prospect of hearing one of Fulci’s greatest ever leads talking about her experiences was something I was looking forward to from the moment the screening was announced.

There was more. After the Q&A, there was the chance to have a chat with Catriona and have DVDs, posters and the like signed. As a massive fan of the MacColl/Fulci trilogy, this was a birthday, Halloween and Christmas rolled up into one and I made sure I had my copy of City with me. To say I was a bag of nerves as I waited to chat to her was an understatement but guess what? Catriona was, of course, incredibly nice, ticking me off in an amusing way about seeing The Beyond before I was eighteen and being extremely patient as I faffed about trying to get a photograph with her.

The fact that icons of the genre are so generous with their time proves that the best people in the world are part of the horror community. The fact that so many of them have sat down and had a drink, or even met me for breakfast, continues to amaze me. Having said that, if you have been part of a horror film and happen to be a guest of Celluloid Screams, and I am annoying you in any way, feel free to tell me to piss off.

8: INSIDE NO.9 ANTHOLOGY

I think it’s safe to say that most horror fans would be at least appreciative of The League Of Gentleman and its various spin-offs and, as Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s anthology series Inside No. 9 was on the rise, Celluloid Screams secured the duo for an event which featured three episodes – Séance Time, The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge and Tempting Fate, which had yet to be screened on the BBC at the time – plus a Q&A and a signing event afterwards.

As much as I love Inside No. 9, I’m not one of those people who LOVE Inside No. 9. I think it’s a great show but my level of devotion to it pales into insignificance at the side of its biggest fans. This is something I witnessed first hand at this event. It was like having rock stars show up in the Showroom. In actuality, there were actual rock stars, kind of, a few years previously during Cell. More of that in Part Two. Back to the Inside No. 9 screening, though, and I sat there thinking “These people are genuinely obsessed.”

In terms of how this was such a Celluloid Screams thing, it amply demonstrated the festival’s willingness to wander outside the feature film format, to attract a wider audience and to give those folks a taste of the friendly atmosphere which is always present. Oh, and to bring in some absolutely cracking guests. See above for the Catriona MacColl bit.

7: ALL-NIGHTERS

If you go to a Celluloid Screams all-nighter now, it’s a separate event (and well worth going to) but it’s good to remember that the all-nighters were originally a part of the festival, beginning in 2013 with a Night Of The (Un)Dead line-up which was comprised of Frankenhooker, The Return Of The Living Dead, The Beyond and Demons (which was a late replacement for Braindead). The expected finish for all of this was around 7am, which meant I could wander up to the nearby hotel, grab breakfast and a few hours of sleep before returning to the Showroom for the 1pm screening of Der Fan. Perfect.

Except…the timetable went ever so slightly awry.

Frank Henenlotter is a fun presence, a fine raconteur and gave an appreciative crowd many tales of Frankenhooker before it began, and in between each movie there was a bumper collection of various classic cinema ads and vintage trailers, and there still needed to breaks to allow folks to stretch their legs and grab a much needed coffee, so by 5am we hadn’t even quite got to The Beyond, which turned out to be an ever bigger treat when viewed under sleep-deprived delirium. Folks, quite understandably, baled well before Demons, which finally rolled at about 7:40am.

Ever heard the Larry Miller stand-up comedy routine about the various stages of drinking in which he emerges from an all-night boozing session into what is now daylight and how it’s like being hit by “God’s flashlight”? That’s exactly the same effect I experienced when I staggered out, zombie like, half blinded, on to Paternoster Row at 9:15am. Yes, that was 9:15am. I stumbled into breakfast at the hotel looking like I’d been dragged through a hedge and I managed a whole thirty minutes of sleep before my alarm sounded and I chaotically made myself “ready” for Sunday’s movies. I arrived on time for the screening of Der Fan and stayed awake not just throughout that but for the rest of the day and somehow I stuck around for the entirety of the afterparty. 2013 Darren, you were an idiot but I salute you.

6: GHOSTWATCH

2022 saw an off-site screening, in collaboration with Live Cinema UK, of iconic BBC TV drama Ghostwatch, which was celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, The event, across the city at Peddler Warehouse, came with its own content warning as follows: This is a live immersive event. Please be prepared for loud and sudden sounds, lighting, smoke, and jump scares throughout. Beforehand, there was an opportunity to check out Ghostwatch-related memorabilia and to obtain some liquid courage at the bar.

Three decades on, it didn’t possess the same novelty and that magical blurring of fiction and reality that the original broadcast achieved but it’s still an imaginative, groundbreaking piece of work, even if the folks who hadn’t even been born in 1992 needed an explanation as to who Michael Parkinson is and why he was such a recognisable television personality. The weirdness extended to the Q&A with director Lesley Manning and writer Stephen Volk, proceedings being interrupted by problems with sound and power, possibly caused by vengeful spirit Pipes.

This particular evening summed up the ethos of Celluloid Screams perfectly. All of the intricate planning is taken extremely seriously and there must have been a number of sleepless nights wondering whether it would all work but the aim is for everyone attending to be completely unaware of the vast effort involved and to have the most fun they possibly can. It introduced a notable title of the genre to a whole new audience while allowing the rest of us to bask in the nostalgia – and to giggle like schoolkids at the mention of the “glory hole.”

In the final analysis, Ghostwatch may have seemed resolutely unscary, even quaint, to a 2020s audience weaned on far sterner stuff but the festival isn’t just there to champion new voices. It also does a great job of shining a light on notable works of previous decades, some of them obscure, all of them ripe for rediscovery. It’s an impossible task to please everyone all of the time but I think Celluloid Screams has an astonishing hit rate. It’s important to remember that, even after that first broadcast back in the 1990s, a lot of folks didn’t know what to make of the format-bending Ghostwatch. Watching it with the rest of the family, there were differences of opinion. I thought it had something and the idea of Parky getting possessed was genius. My dad, however, described it as “bloody rubbish” and you know what? Both reviews are as valid today as they were then.

Coming soon – moments five to one in the countdown, plus a bonus extra…