Two days. Dozens of icons. One basement lair where chaos, community, and the love of the macabre fused into something unforgettable. London’s Silver Scream was not just another convention. The weekend felt like a collision of worlds: horror cinema, heavy music, cult fandoms, and the kind of chaotic energy only Ice Nine Kills can summon.
Actors, musicians, creators, and fans drifted between panels and photo ops, many looking as though they had stepped straight off the screen, each carrying a distinct flavour of darkness.
Silver Scream Con – Day One
Set in the basement of the Cumberland Hotel, the venue unfolded like a hidden lair. Rows of stalls overflowed with horror merchandise, handcrafted curiosities, devilish fragrances, and enough black T-shirts to make even the most devoted collector jealous.
One room hosted panel interviews, another held the stars themselves, greeting fans who had travelled for a moment in their orbit. Beyond that sat the professional photo area, where attendees queued for their pre-paid portraits with their favourite horror icons.
“We didn’t ruin your childhood.” Winnie the Pooh, but feral
Saturday’s 3 p.m. Winnie the Pooh: Blood And Honey panel was already standing room only before Natasha Tosini even took the mic. She didn’t waste time addressing the elephant, or rather, the bear, in the room.
“We didn’t ruin your childhood,” she said, deadpan. “We can’t go back in time. If you didn’t like the film, fine. But you’re looking at the wrong person for a ruined childhood.”
Behind the scenes, the cast’s experience was far less polished. Piglet and Pooh, played by co-panellist Craig David Dowsett, apparently burst into laughter the first time they saw each other fully suited. Two grown adults in grotesque latex, trying to walk, breathe, and hear through heavy, hot, barely mobile costumes. The absurdity of the project, the sheer uniqueness of the whole endeavour, kept everyone going.
Natasha, a Heavy Metal fan who gravitates toward psychological horror, admitted she has not watched a full horror film in a while because she is “often on a side quest.” She described the movie as a passion project, scrappy, collaborative, everyone pulling together.
Dowsett added that he was already deep into a new horror film, due out in January 2026, this time stepping into the director’s seat.
Rose Mcgowan: From Ursa To Art The Clown’s Victim
A quick turnaround led straight into panel two with Rose McGowan. Fresh off the Wembley Arena stage after playing Art The Clown’s victim during the final song, A Work of Art, she dove into a fan question about how a generation of girls looked to the Charmed sisters for inspiration.
McGowan spoke about her own influences growing up. One of the first characters who shaped her was Ursa from Superman II, played by Sarah Douglas. With so few strong, independent female characters on screen at the time, seeing Ursa at an impressionable age helped form McGowan’s sense of power and identity. That experience, she explained, inspired her to become the kind of figure future generations could look to.
Creeper: Where Punk, Theatre, And Horror Collide
The final panel of day one belonged to Creeper, who arrived like absolute workhorses. They had just dashed from the shopping area stalls, where they had spent over an hour meeting fans, taking photos, and signing anything put in front of them.
In a rare and wholesome twist, they charged nothing for the experience, even bringing their own stack of prints for anyone who was empty-handed.
If the Pooh panel was chaotic, the Creeper session was pure electricity. The band spoke openly about the crossover between heavy music and horror, a relationship that feels inevitable once you hear them talk.
Will Ghould admitted he always wanted to be more musical theatre, but somehow ended up punk. Hannah wanted to be punk from the start. That tension, that shared energy, is exactly why Creeper works.
Their iconic makeup was not originally meant to be permanent. They skipped it at early shows until kids started turning up fully painted, expecting the spectacle. So Creeper embraced the look. The theatre became part of the identity.
Ian Miles described the rush of intimate gigs: fans screaming in your face, the immediacy of the moment, versus the way you can only really see the first few rows in an arena. Creeper thrives in that closeness.
Will is a massive Meat Loaf fan and draws inspiration from his favourite horror film, Phantom Of The Paradise. Hannah spoke about her dream of working with Ghost, her favourite band and Lawrie Pattison admitted he was meant to be in the studio with his other band that day, but Silver Scream won out.
By the time the lights dimmed on day one, Silver Scream had already proven why the event has become a pilgrimage point for horror fans. From feral childhood icons to feminist genre legacy to the theatrical punk chaos of Creeper, the day moved with the momentum of a slasher sprint: unpredictable, loud, and strangely heartfelt.
What tied the panels together was not just horror, but community. Whether it was actors sharing anecdotes, Rose McGowan reflecting on the power of representation, or Creeper giving their time freely to fans, the through line was clear. This convention thrives on shared obsession. Performers, musicians, fans, everyone arrived with their own flavour of darkness, and somehow the pieces all fit.
Day one set the tone. Messy, generous, passionate, and buzzing with the kind of energy that only happens when horror and music collide under one roof. And if this was the warm-up, day two promised to go even harder.
As the crowds spilt out into the cold London night, the buzz did not fade. It thickened into something heavier and more anticipatory. Day one had been only the beginning. While some left the carnage behind, scores were already gearing up for round two. And the truly unhinged headed straight for the afterparty.
Silver Scream Con – Day Two: Masks And Monsters
If Day One was the collision, Day Two was the descent, a deeper fall into the fandom, the craft, and the strange communion that forms when horror icons and their devotees share the same air. The crowds arrived slower, sleep-deprived, but the energy remained unmistakable. This was the day for the die-hards.
The morning belonged to the fans, and none embodied the spirit of the day quite like Harriet. She drifted through the hall clutching an M&S Percy Pig shopping bag like a talisman, her other hand gripping a freshly signed Terrifier Art The Clown mask.
David Howard Thornton, Art the Clown himself, had just scrawled his name across the surface, and Harriet stared at the signature as though a single breath might smudge the ink.
She had asked him, “Have you ever had a Percy Pig?” Thornton cracked up, delighted. The moment became pure Silver Scream, gore meeting British humour, a blood-soaked icon colliding with a pink gummy pig.
James Jude Courtney: Transformation As Ritual
As the afternoon lurched forward, the panel room quietened, and the Halloween-focused session set a more contemplative tone. James Jude Courtney spoke about transformation as ritual, describing the process of becoming Michael Myers as something grounding rather than draining. The hours in the chair were not a burden. They were a kind of meditation.
When he stepped into the character, something clicked. Every fibre of his body felt alive, every movement intentional. The performance became less about acting and more about inhabiting a presence.
He spoke about film sets with a kind of reverence. “I wish everyone could work on a movie set at least once,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. Everyone comes together.” In a room full of fans, the sentiment landed with surprising weight.
Doug Bradley: A Liverpool Lad With A Monster’s Face And A Music Fan’s Heart
Later in the afternoon, Doug Bradley, forever Pinhead but here entirely himself, took the stage. Instead of diving into Cenobite mythology, he talked about music. Pop music. Growing up in Liverpool. The Beatles woven into the fabric of his childhood.
He laughed as he remembered queueing outside a record shop at 9 am, waiting for the doors to open so he could buy his first vinyl: The White Album. The anticipation, the ritual of the purchase, still lives in him. He remains an album listener, not a shuffler or sampler, someone who believes in the arc of a record from start to finish.
Then came the stories, the kind that reveal the man behind the pins. He recalled meeting Ghost more than a decade ago at a convention. They invited him to their show that night, and he went, not really knowing what to expect.
He slipped out back for a few songs to chat with the band’s management, and when he returned, he discovered he had missed a once-in-a-lifetime moment: Ghost covering Here Comes The Sun. A Beatles track. A rare one, and he had been outside.
A fan later circled back to an earlier comment Bradley had made about liking most music, though Heavy Metal was not really his thing, and asked about Motörhead’s Hellraiser and his connection to Lemmy. Bradley grinned and channelled Lemmy’s voice. “What would Lemmy say to you now? We’re not a Heavy Metal band. We’re a rock’ n’ roll band.”
From there, he drifted into warm, funny anecdotes about working with Lemmy, hanging out with him, and bonding over their shared love of British comedy. Two icons, trading jokes and talking craft.
And then, of course, the lift story. Getting ready for the 1993 MTV Awards in full Pinhead makeup, stepping into a hotel lift, and watching a businessman recoil so hard he refused to enter. Bradley rode down alone, amused, and later arrived at the event to meet Ringo Starr, a full circle moment for a Liverpool kid who once queued for Beatles vinyl.
Terrifier Time: Closing The Chaos
The Terrifier panel brought together director Damien Leone, David Howard Thornton (Art the Clown), Samantha Scaffidi, who plays Victoria Heyes, and Amelie McLain, the young actor behind the Little Pale Girl in Terrifier 2. Together they delivered a conversation that swung between absurdity and genuine insight.
Thornton laughed about the surreal moment he met Terry Crews while fully dressed as Art, made even stranger by Crews’ daughter enthusiastically snapping photo after photo with the blood-soaked mime.
The story served as a reminder of how deeply Terrifier has seeped into the mainstream, a once niche horror icon now brushing shoulders with Hollywood heavyweights.
Leone leaned into his affection for London and teased early plans for Terrifier 4. He talked about finding inspiration in the most mundane corners of everyday life, spotting an object on the street or gadgets in a café and immediately imagining how the item could be twisted into a kill scene.
He also stressed that the next instalment will take the franchise in a different direction, hinting at a tonal shift while keeping the series’ signature brutality intact. For fans eager to mark their calendars, he dropped one final tease. A likely 2026 release.
A Day Built On Devotion
Day Two did not roar the way Day One did. The energy simmered instead of exploding, pulsing through the rooms with a quieter intensity. This was the day when masks came off, and new ones were put on with purpose.
Fans were meeting their heroes. They were learning how the monsters were made. Actors were not promoting projects. They were revealing the craft, the discipline, the strange beauty behind the brutality.
A Percy Pig bag, the High Priest of Hellraiser, and everything in between could all coexist without irony. Because at Silver Scream, everything belongs.
The Weekend Wrap Up: A Community Stitched Together By Darkness
What lingered after the final panel was connection. Strangers became friends, guests became mentors, and the line between performer and fan blurred into something rare.
Across two days of costumes, lore, chaos, and community, Silver Scream London proved horror is more than a genre. It is a gathering place built on shared fascination and shared courage. A stitched-together family of people who find beauty in the dark, and who recognise each other instantly.
By the end of Silver Scream London, the message was unmistakable. Horror is not just a genre. It is a language. A way of finding your people. A way of being seen.
Across two days of costumes, bloody tales, punk energy, and unhinged laughter, the convention proved what fans already know. Horror is not about fear. Horror is about belonging.
