BlackCraft Cult Presents: Doug Bradley

BlackCraft Cult, which “spawned out of a Southern California attic in the summer of 2012”, and whose “inception was the collaborative brainchild of Jim Somers and Bobby Schubenski” as their website notes, celebrated their 10th anniversary in the McKees Rocks borough of Pittsburgh, over Valentine weekend at Black Forge Coffee House, a Heavy Metal community destination founded by Ashley Corts.

‘The Witching Hour’ Podcast, featuring special guest, ‘Hellraiser’ actor Doug Bradley, was the feature of BlackCraft Cult’s first live event since the COVID pandemic, hosted by Josh Balz and Bobby Schubenski, delivered the numbers in attendance for this closely packed to capacity and equally generously free event devoted to the fans of Horror and of Heavy Metal.

The Black Forge Coffee brand, “lives by a mission to provide a creative destination focused on supporting the communities of Pittsburgh’s coffee culture, music & art scene” and “offers a safe space for artists of all types to share their craft” as Black Forge’s website notes; and so it was fitting that Bobby Schubenski, originally of Pittsburgh now by way of Anaheim, California, after co-founding BlackCraft with Somers, chose a return home to host their 10th anniversary event.

Ashley Corts, who offers a great deal of herself to help support communities of Pittsburgh and abroad during all stages of the COVID pandemic with Black Forge Coffee Van, whose mission is to help small independent music venues, and “tours across the country with their traveling coffee bar to locally owned business and music venues, donating a percent of our sales to the venue or music industry programs”, was on hand serving up caffeinated specialities to bring life after death to COVID for the event. Currently Black Forge Coffee Van is once again out on the “Save Our Stages” tour together with Oddities & Curiosities Expo,”the first and original traveling event exclusively showcasing oddities vendors and dark artists in the country”, originating from Tulsa, Oklahoma through wife and husband Michelle Cozzaglio and Tony Cozzaglio, currently in 2022 making its way across the U.S. from San Diego, California to Buffalo, New York and back.

A “Heavy Metal Woman-Owned Business” was one hell of a setting to house BlackCraft Cult’s 10th year event, featuring none other than Doug Bradley of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, who was celebrating his own anniversary of eight years since coming to America, becoming a resident of Pittsburgh and years later a United States citizen, after falling in love with his wife artist Steph Sciullo, adapting the title of her work ‘Brainsick and the Damned: The Art of Steph Sciullo’.

“Steph’s work is challenging and highly original: grotesque, beautiful, twisted, funny, demented and downright fucked-up!” notes Doug at Steph’s website, and she herself has stated that, “My work has been called Grotesque, Dark, Disturbing and Visceral. All compliments in my book!”

Described as a self taught visual artist living & working in and originally from Pittsburgh, Steph who notes on her etsy shop website “I show in various galleries and sell my work not only over the internet, but at Horror conventions throughout the country”, together with her husband Doug. They also host ‘Down to Hell’ together with Horror Hub Marketplace.

‘Down to Hell’ which originally premiered, Thursday July 22, 2021 at Horror Hub Marketplace’s Twitch TV, co-produced by Horror Hub Marketplace’s David Flood and Doug Bradley, continues to feature “horror guests, creators of horror, paranormal investigators and anything else you can imagine if you dare”, and premieres Thursday evenings at 8:00pm EST, now making the jump from Twitch TV over to Horror Hub Marketplace’s YouTube channel, due to a friendlier ease of access for users and fans of Doug and Steph, to fit more closely in reach to their demographics. ‘Down to Hell’ is equally set to move the entirety of their archives of their previous programming from Twitch TV to their Horror Hub Marketplace at YouTube.

In recent coverage of the ‘Down to Hell’ episode with Robert Englund, Bloody Disgusting’s Editor in Chief, John Squires noted, “‘Down to Hell’ is in its premiere season. Produced by Horror Hub Marketplace, the show is a casual conversation between host Doug Bradley, co-host Steph Sciullo and some of horror’s most interesting creators, actors, musicians, and personalities. Horror fans can ask questions in the live chat and interact with one another during the show.”

I spoke with Doug briefly after the event, learning his relationship with BlackCraft began when he was approached by BlackCraft to produce a t-shirt series together with their clothing brand line, which later led to Doug becoming Master of Ceremonies of BlackCraft Wrestling promotion.

Doug also spoke of his love for monster movies, particularly Hammer Film’s productions of Frankenstein and Dracula. As we know Doug Bradley is one of only five actors to play the same horror character at least six consecutive times, another being Sir Christopher Lee (who portrayed Count Dracula at least seven times), and turned our attention to his love for Peter Cushing’s ‘Victor Frankenstein’ as the real monster.

On the newsfront we learned Doug is back on the convention circuit since his hiatus started September 14, 2021, when he and his wife made the personal decisions to cancel any and all remaining convention appearances in 2021 due to COVID numbers vastly skyrocketing.

Doug’s first appearance back in 2022 will be Days of the Dead (Atlanta, GA) on Feb., 25-27, to be followed by Monsterpalooza (Pasadena, CA) on July 3-5, Monster-Mania (Cherry Hill, NJ) on Aug. 12-14, Monster-Mania (Hunt Vale, MD) Sept. 30-Oct. 2, and a TBA Tennessee date in July. 

Doug Bradley has previously noted in a facebook post to fans regarding his 2021 cancellations, “Yes, I’m vaccinated, and yes, I would wear a mask at all times during the show but even so, nothing feels right about this at the moment.” More recently at ‘Down to Hell’ and at BlackCraft Cult presents: Doug Bradley pop-up event, both Doug and Steph have stated they feel we are “going to have to learn to live with this thing” and “move towards a position in relation to the flu”, and while they are exploring possibilities of overseas with great precaution, they aren’t there yet.

As for convention stories Doug Bradley was asked about, he reflected “people are endlessly nice”, and recalled once there was a young woman shaking & crying, and asked her “are you alright?”, reaching out to her. Sobbing, she replied “You don’t understand. “It’s you!”. And the weirdest thing? he recalled a guy once tried to save his soul and held a long biblical conversation together.

On ‘Down to Hell’ news discussed both in a recent episode with there and at the pop-up event, Doug Bradley & Steph Sciullo have discussed their friendship with Dani Filth of Cradle of Filth, and are excited to announce Dani Filth will be joining for the March 3 episode of ‘Down to Hell’, and Doug’s recent appearance on his fifth consecutive album collaboration with Cradle of Filth.

At the closing of the event’s engagement, Doug Bradley and BlackCraft thanked everyone for coming out and joining them for the celebration of BlackCraft’s 10th Anniversary pop-up event, Doug and Steph greated and talked great at length with their fans of the crowd, myself included.