FrightFest review – Captured Souls: In Conversation With Graham Humphreys

FrightFest review – Captured Souls: In Conversation With Graham Humphreys

I doubt if I’m capable of providing an objective review of Captured Souls, which – in addition to artist Graham Humphreys – is entirely populated by people I know … I’m even glimpsed in the crowd at one point, and have been around for more or less the whole of Graham’s career.  I was introduced to Graham at the Scala (of course) by the late Phil Nutman (who is mentioned often) at a book launch party in 1985 and have worked often with him – I own some of his original artwork for my book and theatre projects.  Actually, I knew who he was before 1985.  I told the original publishers of my book Nightmare Movies to get the guy who did the Evil Dead poster to do the cover, though they misinterpreted that and used that hokey hand-up-from-the-grave publicity image Sam Raimi was embarrassed by but admitted was seen everywhere … and Graham had already illustrated a funny article about mad scientists I co-wrote for Knave magazine back when freelance writers and illustrators could pick up small amounts of money providing filler between girlie pics.  As is revealed in Graham’s reminiscences about his childhood influences, we owned the same (few) books about horror films in the 1970s.

So, for me, this extended chat is full of moments of recognition – not just of Graham’s particular artwork but of the books on his shelves and the posters on his walls … and of familiar FrightFestery or horror industry faces like Alan Jones, Jane Giles, Marc Morris, Reece Shearsmith, Andy Nyman, Jasper Sharp (who commissioned a portrait with mushrooms from Graham), Fran Simeoni, Madeleine Smith, Peter Fuller and Hamish McAlpine.  The format is that Graham sits down not with one well-briefed interviewer but with a succession of folk who know part of the story and some of the answers and grill him lightly about various stages of his work (which is displayed prominently).  Director Chris Collier made a documentary about FrightFest – Graham, of course, has done all the posters throughout the run – and carries over a lot of that warmth and enthusiasm, but Captured Souls also intersects with Jane Giles’ and Ali Catterall’s Scala documentary.  It’s as if there’s now a shelfload of documentaries covering the times and places I’ve lived through – which is oddly reassuring, and I hope not too offputting for anyone outside the charmed circle.

Graham is too kindly to go into much of the downside, though he tells tales of unsettled invoices and precarious finances which will be familiar to any freelance and has a few moments’ pause for manly emotion when remembering those who didn’t make it as far into the 21^st century as he has.

Here’s the FrightFest listing.

By the way, Graham did a portrait of me too – for a birthday card.  Here it is …