Nicholas Vince is an actor with a history of playing monsters. He is best known to horror fans as the man behind the mask of Hellraiser cenobite, Chatterer. Since that first on-screen role, Nicholas Vince has also played Kinski in Nightbreed, as well as appearing in several more recent independent horror films such as Book of Monsters and its sequel, How to Kill Monsters.
In 2019, Nicholas Vince took to the stage at London Horror Festival to perform his one-man stage show, I Am Monsters. During the fifty minute performance, Nicholas Vince spoke directly to the audience about his life and career. The show was well received and has now evolved into a film version, which is currently available to own on limited edition Blu-ray. THN spoke with Vince to find out more about the journey from stage to screen.
The idea for I Am Monsters began as a stage show, what prompted the change to film?
It all came out of lockdown. The stage show was in 2019 at the London Horror Festival, then Mitch Harrod from Soho Horror Film Festival did SoHome Horror Film Festival and asked me to film some pieces. He said, “Nick, can you just do a couple of excerpts? It doesn’t have to be anything too wonderful technically, just do it on your iPhone.” It was watching that footage, which is now sadly lost, when I realised this whole thing of being able to talk to camera, as if you’re talking to somebody directly, is very powerful, and that I could have some fun with that. I also thought this is a chance for expanding it. There are definitely stories that I wasn’t able to fit into a fifty minute show. I basically added another twenty minutes to it. It was just too good an opportunity to miss, I think.
Then, when I was thinking of people to work with, Stewart Sparke and Paul Butler from Dark Rift Horror immediately came to mind because I had already done Book of Monsters with them, and really enjoyed working with them. So I chatted about it with them and they were really enthusiastic about the idea, and had a huge contribution, both of them, to actually bringing it to fruition.
How did the transition from stage to screen go?
There were definitely challenges. I’ve seen it done with other shows where the temptation of a director is to simply place a camera as if you are a member of the audience. But it just means that you’re constantly looking at a little figure in the middle of the screen. You’re not able to do mid-shots and close-ups, which I think is really important. Generally you use wide angles to set a scene and you start cutting in for mid-shots and close-ups, so you can see emotion and reaction from your actors.
As much as I enjoyed talking to the audience, other stuff needed to be put in as well. That’s when I decided to add in the stop-motion scene, and approach Ashley Thorpe to do the animation for the extract from Dracula. Originally it was chapters and then we decided on two acts. It was definitely based on one man shows and I thought breaking it up into acts so that you know that you’ve moved would work. Then the idea of starting with this stage, but moving to a place which in the script, I just referred to as ‘the space’, which turned out to be a set that we really had access to. These things fell together fairly naturally and meant that I could have fun and experiment and do different things.
I Am Monster is very personal, why did you decide to open yourself up in such a vulnerable way?
This really does come back to the stage show. I was patron of the London Horror Festival for about five years, when I did the stage show. So I’d seen a lot of one person shows, both men and women, and I was entranced by these things, and then I thought, “okay, well, I’ve got all these stories about these sets – Hellraiser, Hellbound, Nightbreed, people really enjoy those stories…” but there’s more to discuss and explore here in terms of what does it mean to be a monster?
I thought about the story as to why the Chatterer looks the way it does, how Clive said we co-created this, and I thought, that’s something I’ve not really spoken about before and I should really tell that story properly. Then it just became the idea of exploring what it is to be a monster. You can only do that if you’re going to be honest about my life. So that was the whole instigation of it. I remember when I was at drama school, one of our teachers said that, “people who come to drama school, need to communicate”, and I just had all these stories to tell. They come out as short stories and other writing I’m working on at the moment. I think it is just… we can’t help ourselves as actors. We just have to tell stories and stories are just fun and interesting and kind of magical.
For those that have already seen the show or film, what is the story that has gotten the biggest reaction?
Honestly, I hadn’t realised… I probably should have realised this before – it’s the dental stuff. There’s the dental stuff, there’s the quotation from the MP about the AIDS crisis – that’s always a big one and that landed exactly as I wanted it to. But what is interesting is having seen it in film festivals with audiences, people always come up to you afterwards and they will have a different reaction to it. There will be different things that have touched them, which I find quite fascinating.
I remember when I was in Belgium at a festival called Razor Reel, there was some talking about the part where I talk about being bullied, but not being the most bullied boy in school and he said, “you mustn’t blame yourself for that.” I don’t really blame myself for that, but I acknowledge that this is how I felt and that’s what I wanted to talk about, but it was very clear that it had touched something in him. That’s what I found really fascinating and magical about this whole experience, the conversations when I do speak to people afterwards. I’ve got a screening in Dorking this coming Saturday that I’m looking forward to. It’s going to be a small intimate showing. Again, I’m really looking forward to hearing what questions come out afterwards. That’s all part of the fun of it.
People should stay around until the very end of the credits as well right?
(Laughs) That photograph seemed to just disappear from my life and then reappear. I knew it existed, and then when I was putting the film together it took me ages to find it. I’m so pleased to be able to find that one eventually. I’m not telling the story behind this unless people actually walk up to me and ask me what the story is behind that one.
In recent years you have become a fierce supporter of independent film, appearing in a plethora of genre content, especially from British and Irish filmmakers. What is it about these projects that you enjoy, and why is it important for you to make them?
I enjoy them because a lot of the time I’m working with people who are much younger than myself. I’m working with people in their early twenties, sometimes in their 30s, and sometimes later, because I think the great thing about independent film is you can come to this either through film school, or just by picking up a phone, or by picking up a camera, and sitting down writing a script, getting together with a whole load of mates and putting something together. By the time I’ve met people, and we’re usually talking about feature films, they’ve gone through all that process. I enjoy it because there’s always a lot of enthusiasm.
All the stuff that I tend to pick… I talk a lot about intelligent horror. I think horror is a really fascinating genre because you can tackle the big questions of life, death and sex basically, and passion, and so on. You need to have scares. They need to be scary, they need to have tension, and so on, so you put your characters into a situation of extremist, and it’s how they react and the moral dilemmas they encounter, but also just spooky tales which are always fun. I am the kid who grew up reading ghost stories, so I like spooky tales. I like the chill, I like the fear. So it’s always fun because the projects I tend to choose are usually different, and I’ve got something interesting. If they’re not interesting to me, I’m not going to do it because it won’t be interesting to an audience.
Why do I think it’s important? Because the business has changed so much since the days in which I did Hellraiser. Not just the move away from film to digital, but the democratisation of the actual production processes. As I say, you can get together with a bunch of mates and film on the weekends. All you need is passion and real sticking power.
I think horror has always been, now moreso, a way to get into the business. I was just over in the States recently chatting with people about Terrifier 3. I have such admiration for those guys because they really, really worked hard. Not just at making their film, but getting themselves to the conventions in the US. Not being invited as guests, but taking themselves and renting a pitch, and just selling their film to people and really getting a connection with the fans. It’s mind blowing what it’s actually achieving now. I’m really looking forward to when that group of people can do other stuff outside of Terrifier, because there must be other stuff that they can do, and I’d be really interested to see what they’re going to do. I think this is important for British filmmakers. Horror is a good way of getting into the business and achieving some success and being able to build upon it, it would be lovely to see a British filmmaker have the same sort of success.
And that’s something that festivals like FrightFest do so well, champion British voices, like with the First Blood strand, of which I know you’re been a part of some of the films that have screened.
Stewart Sparke and Paul Butler from Dark Rift, who I worked with on How to Kill Monsters, [which screened at FrightFest] that’s going online in America at the beginning of December. Other people like Charlie Steeds – who has got a phenomenal output – I think Charlie must be doing at least three or four films a year. I’m in one of his which has just gone online on 1st November in the US – He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, written and starring David Lenik. It’s really exciting, when you see this. This is what I find most exciting.. because when we did Hellraiser, we were all very young. I was in my late twenties, but some of them were in their late teens and early twenties. The filmmakers haven’t aged; I have (chuckles). But I think what I find most exciting about horror is working with young people, although I will work with anybody if it’s a good script.
Physical media is vital at the moment, and I am Monsters has a limited edition bluray. What special features are included?
I keep on coming back to this poster by Graham Humphreys. I’m so lucky that Graham managed to fit it in because it’s just such a wonderful image. We’ve got four postcards and there’s a booklet in there as well. And you get my short films, which are written, directed, and linked to other stuff like the short films that I did for the Soska Sisters for their Blood Drive. You also get some behind the scenes stuff on the short film The Night Whispered, and there’s the lovely interview with Dominic Brunt. So there’s all sorts of stuff that comes rather than just the film.
What’s next? You mentioned some writing, is that your focus for the next while?
There’s a whole load of things happening at the moment. So we’ve got Advent, a film which I starred in, that is coming out online at the end of this month in the UK, and the beginning of December from director Airell Anthony Hayles. There is How to Kill Monsters, which I mentioned earlier, that’s coming out at the beginning of December, and He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, written and starring David Lenik and directed by Charlie Steeds that’s out online in America. It’s that weird situation, I’ve got four projects all happening within a month and of course it represents years in terms of when I did the work on them.
I’ve got my third volume of short stories due out at the beginning of next year. That’s the thing that once I’ve cleared the decks, I go back to writing that, and there is a novel in the works as well. My first novel, which I can say absolutely nothing about except that it’ll probably take me a long time to write, but we’ll have to see how that goes next year, but that’s what I’m concentrating on. There’s some feature film scripts in there as well. One in the very early stages of drafting, and I’ve got a sketch for the other one. I need to sort out the plot for that. So yeah, there’s just a lot of stuff happening.
I Am Monsters is out to own on limited edition Blu-ray now.
