TOM KING went along to the premiere of horror movie Green Fingers, a first film by Benfleet director Paul Cotgrove, which was shot entirely in Essex

It was horrible, I tell you! Horrible!

Benfleet film-maker Paul Cotgrove's first film as writer-director, Green Fingers, is a horror story that offers a cinematic bloodfeast of gore, ghouls and severed body-parts.

The official premiere was held last week at Screen West, the film industry's luxury viewing theatre in Notting Hill, with This Is Essex in attendance.

Viewers responded to the film with a chorus of "yuck" which must have gladdened the director's heart.

Then, at the end, just as the audience emerged gasping with relief into the daylight, the true terror began.

Nothing on screen could compare with the line-up of real-life personalities on hand for the premiere. It amounted to a roll-call of the actors and technicians associated with Britain's famous old Hammer Films studio.

Who can encounter the statuesque Ingrid Pitt without vivid memories of her role as Nora, the Countess Dracula, who kept her skin soft and her body firm by drinking the blood of murdered virgins?

Who can shake the hand of composer James Bernard without thinking: "This is the hand that turned out all that fleshcreeping music - music which accompanied Frankenstein as he rose from the grave and the evil Mummy as he splattered buxom bimbos?"

Paul Cotgrove's enthusiasm and powers of persuasion have brought names like this back, if not from the coffin, then at least from the limbo of semi-retirement.

Filmed entirely on location in Essex, Green Fingers is a vivid tribute to the Great British horror films of the '50s and '60s, which, among other things, won a Queen's Export Industry award for services to the national balance of payments.

Hammer horror films were, and are, celebrated around the world. Ingrid Pitt continues to ply a prosperous trade by attending film conventions and publishing books that draw on her reputation as the Queen of Film Horror.

"I'm too busy with my life to spend much time looking back on the past," she told the Echo. "But it is nice to be back on screen again, and Paul is a fine new director with a great future in the business."

Paul works in the industry as the British Council's chief film technician and librarian. The role brings him into contact with figures from all spectra of the business.

"I'd met Ingrid Pitt already, and we'd become quite good friends," he recalls. "There was no problem at all. As soon as she knew that I was working on a script, she said : 'I'll be in your film, darlink'."

With one of the biggest horror stars on board, Paul had little difficulty in persuading Robin Parkinson, of 'Allo 'Allo fame, to join the cast.

A further symbolic coup was the casting of Janina Faye. As a child actress, she was involved right at the start of the Hammer horror story. Janina played the Child Menaced by Vampire in the original 1958 Dracula, alongside Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

With the arrival of composer James Bernard, the film rapidly took on the appearance of a Hammer Studios reunion party. Like so many people involved with horror films, James Bernard is a gentle, softly-spoken person, with kindly eyes.

Yet he has spent his career orchestrating scenarios like: "The doctor dissolves into a fetid, steaming puddle of blood and innards."

Bernard explained: "It was pleasant to have the chance to write another film score. I liked Paul and the script is very much in the colourful Hammer tradition."

Paul, who lives at Tarpots with his wife and daughter, has been a fan of Hammer horror films since long before he was legally old enough to watch them in the cinema.

When he came to plan his own first film, it was natural for him to select a horror subject.

"As a lad in the early '70s I read the Fontana Book of Horror, and the particular story Green Fingers, by RC Cook, just stuck in my mind," he says.

"I've never been able to forget it." RC Cook, rather oddly, turned out to be an amateur writer. Despite the fame and popularity of Green Fingers, he showed no interest in writing anything further.

The story centres on Mrs Bowen, an outwardly staid country lady, with extraordinary gardening skills. "I can make anything grow," she claims.

However, this tweedy country lady is also a pronounced sadist, who practices murder and mutilation on the local animal population.

When she starts to bury items such as dead pussycats, and ultimately human amputations, in the flowerbed, she ends up cultivating items that she never originally planned.

A familiar feature of the Hammer films was the background of gentle and peaceful English country life, masking the horrors beneath. The setting of Green Fingers - a run-down but still picturesque old house and garden - were essential to the atmosphere and feel of the film.

Paul originally wanted to film as close to Benfleet as possible. Alas, run-down but idyllic houses and gardens in this part of the county can be hard to find.

"Every weekend," Paul recalls, "I'd take my wife and my little girl out around Essex, and we'd visit houses, meet the owners, drink gallons of cups of tea, and look at the gardens.

"Eventually, the historical buildings department at County Hall suggested Dorewards Hall, in Bocking. When I saw the place, it matched exactly what we needed."

Other scenes were filmed in the country lanes around Bocking.

Green Fingers finally went in front of the cameras in the summer of 1998. After shooting was finished, editing, scoring and other post-production work had to be woven round Paul's own full-time job. "You've got to be raving mad to make your own film," Paul says with feeling.

Now at last the great moment had arrived. Paul Cotgrove stood in front of the audience and announced: "Welcome to two years of my life." Any number of young technicians, family and friends in the front row chorused back: "And ours too, Paul."

The film now goes on to the Brussels Fantasy Film Festival.

After that, it should join a circuit of horror and fantasy film festivals, ensuring that tens of thousands of afficionados get to see it

Nothing though can eclipse the wonder of that first first-night for the local film-maker. "It was just about the greatest moment of my life," says Paul. As horror evenings go, this was a truly lovely one.

Right, Ingrid Pitt, star of Paul's film, was a stalwart of Hammer horror films, including The House that Dripped Blood

(Left) Blood-curdling - Ingrid gets to grip with that axe

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.