An actor from Harrogate is to make his debut in a horror film produced by a local independent filmmaker.
Damien S Fear starred in Joe Cash’s horror-comedy Calling Nurse Meow, a follow-up to his 2021 film Carnal Monsters.
The film will premiere at the Dead Northern horror film festival in York on September 24.
The film is an anthology based around one of the main characters from the first film, who Mr Cash said proved popular with the film’s audience.
One of the film’s shorts was filmed in Harrogate. Initially intended as a test run, it was included after the filmmakers thought that the filming process had gone well.
In total, filming took over four months – longer than normal for an independent film. Scenes were also shot in Nottinghamshire and Milton Keynes.
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Mr Cash, who is also from Harrogate, previously made props for Fantastic Beasts and played a stormtrooper in Star Wars: Episode VII.
He believed making the film as an anthology had been a different experience to a regular film. He said:
“There’s so many more cogs and people involved with an anthology. There’s a lot more creativity in there… It’s been a lot of fun but it’s been a lot of work.”
A TV series based around the film’s characters in also set to be produced and released in 2024.
Damien S Fear made his acting debut in Joe Cash’s anthology film (photo: Joe Cash)
Yorkshire horror
The Dead Northern festival started out as the Harrogate Horror Film Festival in 2019.
This year, it is showing a mix of classic horror films as well as independent films made by local and international producers.
A live séance will also feature as part of the event, which is running between September 23 and 25 at York’s City Screen Picturehouse.
Horror film festival coming to Harrogate this HalloweenA horror film festival is coming to Harrogate this Halloween in a supposedly haunted Victorian ball room of the Crown Hotel.
Harrogate Horror Film Festival will return with coronavirus safety measures in place, including limited places for its film screenings and splitting into two rooms if there’s enough demand.
Organisers Dead Northern will kick off the week on October 26 with a pub quiz. There will be lots of pop up events around the town leading up to the weekend at the Crown Hotel.
Highlights of the festival include an exclusive screening of Host, a film made during lockdown, as well as a night of dinner and live entertainment at Cardamom Black.
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The organisers had planned to hold a daily ghost walk, but that is now up in the air following the government’s ban on gatherings of more than six.
People will be able to watch some of the shorter independent films for free during the week but there will be a charge for the more polished viewings.
Josh Lawson, one of the founders of Dead Northern, told the Stray Ferret that only the ghost walks will be affected by the new government restrictions:
“Dead Northern has been in talks with cinemas about the new rule of six. We think it is something we are exempt from. We can keep people in bubbles of six and apart from others.
“It will be less family friendly compared to last year. There will be films like Ghostbusters but we need to bring in a more adult audience because of coronavirus.”
Tickets will go on sale next week on the Dead Northern website from £5 for a screening and goes up to £100 for the full week. The full week ticket includes every event except the evening at Cardamom Black which will cost an additional £40.