BONUS - Director Paul King on Beneath London - The Story of Alien War

Hello, and welcome to this bonus episode of the film Ementary's podcast. I'm Jamie Benning, your hosts. Back in early twenty twenty five, this year, I spoke to filmmaker Paul King about his documentary Shine On, a love letter to the shining filming locations at Elstreet Studios. Well, Paul is. Back, and this time he's turned his attention to another fascinating piece of British pop culture history.

His new short documentary Beneath London The Story of Alien War explores the bizarre and brilliant alien themed walkthrough experience that briefly took over London's Trocadero in the nineteen nineties. If you were around then, you might remember the buzz. Maybe you even dared to go in. I didn't. I was too scared, But Paul did and the early brush with Wayland Utahni Marines left a lasting impression.

In our conversation, we dig into the origin of Alien War, how it managed to get official backing from Fox at the time, and why it deserves a bigger place in the genre fan memory. We also talk about how Paul uncovered rare footage, track down key players and stitched it all together into a compelling twenty minutes short documentary that honestly is begging to be expanded into a feature length documentary. So, without further ado, here's my conversation with Paul King, and as usual, I'll be back at the end for a little bit more jabbering on. This was a suple idea that it blew up into something we could all make you more. Nothing like this had ever been done before.

The pressure they get it right was huge. Every newspaper in media outlet covered it throughout the world. It definitely wasn't like any job I've ever done before. I'm carrying a great, big pulse rifle and I'm getting paid to do this. We wouldn't get screaming, cry how you're ventilating.

You know, everybody likes to be scared, and that is the premise of Earlymore was Let's get scared. M hm. Paul, thanks for coming back on the podcast. I think what was it January? I think you were on.

Shine on it was I think it was, I think it maybe maybe, Yeah. I interviewed maybe in December. I can't remember, but good to have you back anyway, and great to see the new documentary. I watched it again this morning Beneath London, The Story of Alien War. Alien War, I remember it.

I never went to it. I was terrified of the idea, but I remember it being in the trock adio. Did you go? Yes, So I went to it twice. Did you once?

As this is sot of like when I was like thirteen years old, I think we'd seen a there was. A picture that was in the paper. Because obviously this is pre internet as well, so early nineties there was. A picture in the paper where they had the Alien Queen in Piccadilly Circus. Yeah, massive Aliens fan I was at the time, so went on.

And then it was around the time when you were at school and want and you're doing work experience, you know, and you go, I don't know, you like working WX Smith's, like our newsagents or something in town. But we me and my best mate. Dave, wrote to Alien War and asked if I could go work there. They said yes. It all fell apart at the last minute because of some insurance problem.

But and then the second time we went, we got invited up for the day and got like a behind the scenes tour. How it all started really and how did the film come about is it just something you fancied doing and started to dig or did it come to you? What were the circumstances, Well, it. Was I think it was. I remember you asking me last time what would the next project be, and I think I was saying along the lines of, you know, if there was a treasure trove of a good story, which I mean I didn't really have too much in mind at the time, but this was sort of floating around maybe in the background.

But what had happened was I just I saw on Facebook that this. Guy who I'd met thirty years ago at Alien War, who was one of the Marines and then became I think one of the managers there as well, was running a Facebook group, the Alien War fang Club, and went on there had a look and I just posted loads of pictures and I told him the story you know about about the work experience thing there. And we just started chatting and then just started saying. Like, gosh, there there is a really good story in here to be told about. Like at one of the first horror definitely in Britain, one of the first horror walk through attractions that was like something that was scary at that kind of level.

That was like playground chat really for so many people. Yeah, because I'm a little bit older in you and I remember it was the sort of time when I was able to go into London with friends and you know, go to the Drocadira, go to the arcade, go and buy clothes, all of that kind of stuff, you know, And I remember the fact that Alien War was there was sort of tantalizing to me and my friend Steve that he's hanging around with at the time. But at the same time, because there was so much sort of unknown surrounding it, Like I didn't like you just called it a walk through experience. I mean, we sort of had no idea what it was like. We just knew that you were going to be terrify, right, So I think we both just bottled it.

I think we were going to do it one day and we just totally bowled it. But it was a rare thing then, wasn't it. Those sorts of experiences didn't happen outside of like a theme park or a funfair. You weren't really having those sort of visceral experiences. Because by the look of it, I mean, it was a hell of a visceral experience.

Walking through corridors. Some bits were from the movie as well, like some of some of the sets. They were So they had a lot of the sets in there from from Aliens. Yeah, and you know some original bits I think, like they had the seats from the from the drop ship. Were in some of the wall panels were originals.

And then they had a lot of the. Molds of like the alien costumes, the Marines costumes, the guns. Yeah, and I. Think I had people who had worked on the films as well, like involved in it. Yeah.

So there was that sort of authenticity, wasn't there that they were aiming for. So, I mean you could you could probably describe it better than me. So just tell us what the experience was for people when they paid their whatever it was ten to fifteen. Quid, probably was about half that. I think it was about six quid.

Yeah. There is a shot actually, isn't there with somebody ringing it up on the till. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and you look at that and go god, that would be like four times the price. Yeah.

So roughly this is from my memory and most of it being jogged from from from making this film. It was it was basically you you went in there, sort of you were going around a whalen U Tawny. Research facility to see the life cycle of these aliens that they've captured. And then as you go. In there, you're being you're being given a tour by a by a marine, and then you're being told, right, one of these things is escaped and we need to get you now.

We need to get you all the way to the end. We're going to have to go through the base though, and each room we go into, we're gonna have to seal it and lock it behind us, and you're gonna have to play a part in it. And I think that is what sort of makes it different, even from a lot of horror walkthrough or just walk through attractions now, where you know, normally you'll go in and it would just be you. Know, you yourself like walk through, like from one room to the next room to the next room. But this has had a story to it as you went.

Through, so it was so you properly felt immersed within this and you felt like you were in the film. And terrified as well. Yeah, it's sort of I mean, I can imagine the secret cinema people were probably inspired by Alien War because I don't think there's ever really been anything like it since. In terms of a big franchise. Of course, we have disney World and Disneyland and all those things where they try and recreate the sets, but to recreate the sort of experience of being in the movies quite different, isn't it.

And you found some amazing footage. You have these audition tapes of the Marines, these kind of out of work actors trying to get a gig and they're they're the tour guides essentially, And also these really good audio interviews that you've got. Was how much of that stuff did you have to like hunt for and how much of it came to you? Also with the marine that I was telling you about, so as Doug Doug McCarthy, so he is now like a senior special effects supervisor in movies. So it was with him that I met up and he said.

Look, I've got this footage from you know, from the two guys who started it, from from John and Gary and lot some of this is out there on the internet. Some of it's never been seen before. A lot of it is very very bad quality, and some of it a lot better where they'd had it. Sort of like professionally shot and documented, but. So much, so much of it was that I think, I think this has kind of come from Gary on.

This is Gary Gillis who's one of the co founders of it, of going right, we want. He wanted everything at the time documented about this sort of the setup of it and how it's going to come together, because they weren't They weren't people who were massively in this in this world. They were very much film fans. Who had this crazy idea got twentieth century Fox on board amazing by. Quite a blag, which is a story we haven't told in this version but I'd love to tell.

And Yeah, and it just goes, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So they and they had a documentary crew following this the beginnings of this really. Yeah, because you see it from the sort of ground up. You see them actually building it and talking to it, and then you see like the launch and Sigourney Weaver turns up and Larta Erickson's there, and just having that kind of stamp of approval from those people must have been amazing for those guys at the time. I mean, I'm sure they felt out of their debt at times as well.

Totally. I mean, I think for you, I think they're in their twenties. Yeah, at the time they obviously they'd started this in Scotland to begin with, but on a lot smaller scale. Then it went to Bournemouth like as a bit of a touring exhibition, and I think it possibly before that to another venue maybe in Aberdeen, and then it got its Yeah, it got its home in. The Trocadero and Piccadilly Circus.

You imagine trying to rent that space out these days, It's impossible. That's the great thing about this documentary is it really? This was it nineteen ninety three, isn't it? It's and it's really sort of a point in time where all of these things sort of converge to enable this thing to happen. The driver of the two guys that wanted to do it, you know, twentieth century Fox saying yes, all the bits and bobs being put into place, and like I said, you know that some of the stars kind of endorsing it.

Funnily enough, I spotted a friend in the film. No, there's a. Guy with a microphone. I can't remember what he says. He says like how is the experience?

And he goes like that, he's got like a big sort of fringe across his forehead. That's Wayne Imms, who runs sound stage events in Brighton, so he bit like my podcast in a way. I guess he invites people down whose work he's admired. So he interviewed Peter Sushitsky the Empire Strikes Back the op recently and Walter Merch as well. But yeah, it was Wayne because.

He used to work for BBC for a while, so yeah, I supotted him in that, which is quite funny. But I love I love that. You know. I have seen a few of those clips I think in the past, like around and about, But it's the way you put them together, of course to make this film, and I think you've done a really deft job of putting it together to create that story. I've got the impression from speaking to you before that you and I think you mentioned it just a minute ago as well, that you want to kind of expand upon this and potentially make a feature.

That is the plan now, I think, because initially with this, very much like the Shining film, it started off as like a weird think in a three to five minute project there. Obviously they're totally different beasts because obviously the Shining one is a story that lots of people know about and you don't have to simplify it so much. Like what we were getting Acts has already got a reference point. Alien Wore was something that. Not a lot of people now thirty years later know about apart from a lot of diehard fans, and so within that, within this version, yet we wanted to do a trailer originally just saying these are the best bits of it.

And then again, like the Shining film, I got a bit caught up in it and went, I'm hearing all these really good stories. And I want to lengthen this out. So made it into this like twenty minute, twenty minute film. But it's which is Maine just about the experience, and it's and just London where is There's so much more of this of the story to tell, which and there's so many more people to hear from with some great stories which just sat in there at the moment would feel totally out of place. I think there's like a good I think that's like a good sort of like.

Sixty to ninety minute film to be told about Alien wart. I mean, the biggest comment I'm seeing now it's out is bring it back. Yeah. Wouldn't that be amazing if you were a catalyst for that. I mean, because the thing is, the films have gone on.

It's not like, you know, there was Alien three, I guess at the time, and it just ended and that was and it was done, and Dusty, We've had multiple movies since, you know, spin offs, we've had crossovers, all sorts. And it's such an iconic thing, isn't it. That Alien that xenomorphy is just such an iconic thing. And I think people would pay, you said a minute ago, you know, four times as much, probably paid ten times as much these days to have that experience. So, you know, cynically, if there is money in it, then somebody will probably find a way to do it.

But that would be amazing if you were the catalyst for that. I mean that, Yeah, that would be incredible. I mean I know that. But John and Gary, you know, having thought about it and early talks about it, but it's I am sort of trying to I'll sort of like keep out of that side then, and if they do it, I'd love. To document it.

Yeah, if it comes together and try and bring it, you know, bring the past to the present with with what's happening now. But yeah, who knows on that? Always looking for another story. Hey, that's just the way you're build. Yeah, I mean it's I think I'm I'm because But obviously both films are pretty based on nostalgia or based on things you know that I've got an interest in from, you know, from about a similar age, from sort of like twelve thirteen.

So I think I'm probably going to run out of things I was properly into at twelve or thirteen to make to make films about. Yeah, that's the problem with the nostalgia business, isn't it. We're running out of topics to tackle, especially when there are those groups going and making those big sci fi documentaries and the Thing documentary and the Alien documentary, and you know, the Jaws. There's how many Jaws ones have there been? Yeah, I'm due to be going to uh Martha's Vineyard in June to shoot more of our Joe Alves documentary because it's the fiftieth anniversary of Jaws.

And although I've just been canceled off a job that was going to get me out to the States. I'm going to have to do it because it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to get you know, Carl Gottlieb, Joe Alves and a few you know, there'll be Jeffrey Kramer will be there as well, just to get them in the vineyard, you know, probably for the last time in their lives talking about something that happened more than fifty years ago. We're the people that have to sell these stories, Paul. That's the thing, you know. We can't leave it up to the studios to do.

I would I'd love to have been out there for that. Yeah, yeah, No, it's going to be good. One of the terms I like in the documentary is that kind of total reality as opposed to virtual reality. You know, these days, I think all the experiences we kind of rely on technology, whether it's like the sphere in Las Vegas or if it's going to the Ironmax, we're relying heavily reliant on this technology. There was technology involved in Alien War, right, I mean they had things where well you can explain what happened when they had the guns.

How did they fire all that stuff off? Yees? So they had I mean, this is my sort of basic secondhand knowledge on that, but but I think it's all about at. The time, the technology which they were using was was pretty high end. So they had they had this gunfire system, which is totally the wrong term for it, but they had.

But they had this system where basically they had the pulse rifles from Aliens and the triggers on that would then set off the speakers. And I think that and then somehow tied into it as well was the lighting. So every time, because you know, I think this was the big thing, especially when it came to you know, the second film, when it came to Aliens, if you saw those creatures in full bright light, they didn't look that that. Great, you know, because because Cameron had, you know, turned it way more into sort of like leotards with. Prosthetic pieces on top of those rather than a whole suit.

So every time you did see the alien and that, yeah, the guns, the lighting would set off the strobes, and there was there were a few. Robotics throughout as well. I think, I tell you what I saw the best description of it, or a brilliant way of putting it. I read the other day if somebody had done a review online, and they said, because it's obviously it is described hard to describe an event to somebody who has never been there and will never experience it and only sees or clips of it. But he said in this, he said in his review, imagine the Jaws ride in America, but instead of being a boat, instead of being in a boat with all the other passengers, you have to swim across the lake.

There are sharks coming at you, and your fellow passengers keep being dragged under the water and their blood coming up, and you have to get to the other side. And he said that's what Alien wore. Was like, that's great, that's a great way of putting it, and that is how you felt in it was Yeah. And exactly the reason I didn't do it. Well, that's that's why I did actually see Jaws once in a swimming pool and I was on a Liloh and there were some people starting about with fins and stuff.

That was enough to sort of put me off going into. The water for a little while. Yeah, I would have loved to have done it. I just think, Yeah, I mean, it took me years to even get used to watching those movies. It's probably only in my late twenties that I would be comfortable watching.

Those movies and appreciate the thought they are. I'm just one of those people that really get sort of taken away by a horror film. And yeah, it wouldn't I would have I would have been one of the fall and they would have had to close it early. I would would have been taken I'm surprised, maybe had a heart attack in that in that experience. Wow, they I think, And so I heard Doug.

Doug McCarthy was saying that they, I think the worst it ever got. Obviously they had a few knocks and brutes is because there were bits when you were running in there as well. But they said they had one person in there who they thought was having a heart attacks, who was so terrified when he came out. But it wasn't. I think it was.

It was just the shock and the and the terror of it. But I think that's the worst, the worst that it ever got to. It was just lots of scream I mean, that was the brilliant the genie. One of the genius things. About it is that as you would as you were queuing up, the queuing area is the exit as well, so as you're queuing to go in, the people run out from the last the last scene within Alien What and.

They're screaming, Yeah, screaming and laughing. You know. Yeah, I guess a bit like when you're queuing for a roller coaster. I guess you see the people who've got wet or they're laughing or they're crying or whatever, and you just don't know what you're going to be in for with the experience. Now, that was a very, very sort of canny idea to have those the people filtering in and filtering out in the same space.

Where can people watch the film pool? So I've this one up on my YouTube, So it's YouTube dot com, forward slash at Paul King, Underscore TV, or if you just search for Beneath London the Story of Alien War, it'll come up. The interviews you've got with some of the people that worked on the experience that they're real characters in themselves. I mean there's a there's a couple of them that really stand out, of course. I mean you must have had a fun time talking to those people about their time there.

Big time. Yeah, we've got we've got Doug he mentions, who's a brilliant, and he's been sort of like a really him and his wife been a real sort of driving force. But behind this film coming together. The other marine that we've got is Maria Bergman, who was the one who's everybody said, just look like Vazquez. Yes, at the time, she was saying, so she is now a she's now a tour guide abroad.

So she said, like she's pretty much doing exactly the same as she was doing then, but without all the aliens popping out everywhere. But like I was saying, they were right in the beginning of this because. It was just going to be this two three minute film it was and more of like a trailer really, So I kind of had in my head already the lines that I wanted them to say, like you would hear in a trailer, like the best like the best bit moments. And then the more I started speaking to them and going, oh, that's just that's how it became longer, when I was just. Hearing their stories and going, there's there's some great.

Things to learn here and to hear I mean the other you know, another big thing about Maria, which we didn't go into in the film, is that aliens and there were alien in particular is that she is a massive, massive fan of those movies. She has had too. She's a huge Geiger fan, Giga fan, So meeting Sigourney Weaver for her was just like yeah, like blew her mind. Awesome. So, last time we spoke about shine On, your documentary about the Shining filming locations, Elstree Studio did obviously you assembled a great little team there with the visual effects and the editing and all those other things.

Did you sort of have a bit of a continuity for the crew involved in this film as well? Yeah, there was to a certain extent. I think it was. Obviously this is on a lot smaller scale than the Shining film because it's all because we've done it with audio interviews instead of on camera, so it's mainly like an archive edit job. But you know, we.

Got got Andrew Jones back who did that's the same style of poster, same grade did the poster for Shine On, did the poster for this. It's just something about his style which is brilliant. They kind of looked like the the books that you would imagine getting in airports in like the eighties or something. On the covers and then I've got Andrew Scullen, who's sort of like one of my oldest friends, who did a lot of the music on Shine On, and he's come back and done some of the track within this. Oh and Greg.

Johnson, who has done a lot of He did a few of the graphics. On shine On. He came back on this as well and did some of the graphic work. And then we're just hoping that, yeah, if we get it to this next stage again, everybody will come back and I will do a bigger, longer, better version. Is the dream Well listen, I really enjoyed and it was another one of those ones.

And I think, as I said to you with. The shining, where I thought, yeah, why didn't anybody else. Do that already? Like why did I not do that? You know, because it feels like a story so right right to tell.

And I do hope that, you know, all the things fall into place for a feature version, because I do think it definitely has legs. There's definitely stories there you can tell. I mean, the film finished, the credits were kind of rolling, and I was like, damn it, I want another you know, forty minutes here that would have been thank you, thank you, yeah, no, I wish you luck with that. And I know what it's like. Sometimes you have these ideas and they don't come to fruition, but you never know.

This thing, this thing could could, yeah, could work. Out, Fingers cross Man. That is totally the hope of this. There's some good stories there to be told. Good thanks again to Paul for coming back on the podcast.

I really enjoyed hearing how Beneath London the story of Alien War came together. There's a link in the show notes, and I genuinely hope he gets the chance to expand it into a feature length documentary. There's clearly so many more stories waiting to be told about that bizarre and brilliant attraction. As for me, I'm currently gearing up for my trip to Martha's Vineyard to film more material for Not Your Average Joe, our feature documentary about legendary production designer Joe Olves. It's really a once in a lifetime opportunity to get out there to Martha's Vineyard and capture interviews with Joe in the place that he originally wrecked in the early seventies, and as well as others who were involved in Jaws.

And there's going to be a few of them out there. Mister gott Leeber's out there, Jeffrey Kramer is out There's a few other people as well. Yeah, back at. The original shooting location. I mean, I'm going to be excited just to be there as a fan.

But it's going to be a busy week. We've got lots going on. We're about nine hundred pounds away from our goal, which will just about cover our costs of flying to Martha's vineyard, hiring a car, and paying for accommodation, which is insanely expensive that particular week. You'd think that those billionaire property owners were rich enough, but it appears not. Any donation, even if you've got five pounds, big or small, would be hugely appreciated, and it's all going to go straight into that week of shooting there and covering our costs.

We've had to hire some extra little bits of equipment. I've had to buy an external sound record as well, because we're having to go very light gorilla style filmmaking. You can find a link in the show notes, or you can go and search Google for go fund me and Joe Als and you'll find it easily. Thanks for listening. To this bonus episode, and I'll be back soon with more conversations from behind the scenes of your favorite films.