Event Report: UK’s HorrorCon 2016 Welcomes Kane Hodder, Doug Bradley, and More!

David Bronstein |

Jul 19, 2016

If HorrorCon 2016, now in its second year, is anything to go by, then this edition of the festival set in Sheffield, England, is waving the flag for all things evil, lurid, and grotesque. HorrorCon set new standards of what a convention should be in a country that is more used to putting on comic cons and sci-fi meetings. It was, in short, refreshing, spectacular, and a joy to behold!

Actors from the horror world such as Kane Hodder, Doug Bradley, David Naughton, and Linnea Quigley graced the dimly lit venue, which only added to the eerie goings-on during what proved to be a typically rainy day in northern England.

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That mattered little to the few thousand horror fans inside a vast venue which played host to signing sessions, Q&A’s, photo shoots, FX make-up workshops, and realistic prop masks from our favorite movies. Even a boa constrictor made an appearance, much to the delight of patrons.

The queues were big for the three main guests of the day, and all seemed to go away happy. David Naughton, most famous for perhaps the greatest werewolf movie ever made: An American Werewolf in London, was in great spirits.

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Doug Bradley, known in the horror genre for playing the one and only Pinhead in the Hellraiser franchise, told a packed crowd of his disdain for Dimension Pictures and how the company showed no care and respect for the latest Hellraiser films. The room laughed along as Bradley told the story of how the company wanted him to sign a contract of confidentiality over the plot to the upcoming tenth movie, a film that Bradley rightly turned down. He suggested that with the world in various troubles and strife, he was sure that not many people would care if a new Hellraiser story was ever leaked.

He also told a story about how he met former Beatle Ringo Starr at the 1992 MTV Movie Awards and how to his astonishment the drummer recognized who he was and shouted, “It’s Pinhead!”

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Kane Hodder drew a huge crowd and many laughs as he pointed out that a lot of today’s horror actors were not fans of the genre when they were growing up. He coughed and blurted out Robert Englund’s name before backtracking and saying he was just joking. Hodder also asked fans a question: “How many bones do you think I have broken in my career?” The response was 55, then 42, then 25 and then somebody shouted out none, and Kane looked right over and said, “Correct.” He then continued that he was mystified by stuntmen who showed off about how many bones they had broken during their career. His justification was a classic, “Breaking your bones during a stunt means you failed.”

Hodder also pointed to someone wearing a Metallica t-shirt and said that he loved the band.

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Convention workers were incredibly friendly throughout, and you could feel the love they have for the genre, which only emphasized their professionalism. It was an event that oozed coolness, awesomeness, and gave you the warmest chill you could imagine. Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and the “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” were all in attendance, just making sure your heartbeat was still thumping.

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Later we were treated to a costume contest, which Jason won. Some of the biggest cheers, though, were reserved for the under 15’s competition, which was won by a toddler all geared up like Chucky from the Child’s Play franchise.

HorrorCon (official site here) was rounded up both days by the weirdest and certainly craziest covers act you’re ever likely to witness in Iron Sphcinter. Their lead singer drank blood from a severed brain whilst singing!

Being at HorrorCon for a fan was the ultimate dream- you could see fans enter who didn’t know where to look such was the amount of different things to view and gasp at. The only problem now is the 12-month wait until HorrorCon 2017. But with the reaction that fans gave, it seems that this year’s edition was, emphatically, a horror fan’s wet dream.

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