The first transmission of semen by fax: the story of Bruce Dickinson’s batsh*t crazy horror movie Chemical Wedding – Louder

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson can turn his hand to pretty much anything. Not only does he front one of the worlds biggest metal bands, hes also deep breath a fencer, an airline pilot, anauthor, a beer manufacturer and a sometimes radio DJ. But theres one entry on his CV that doesnt get talked about much: his foray into the world of film.

Were talking specifically about Chemical Wedding, the low-budget horror movie that was conceived and co-written by Bruce. Inspired by the singers love of classic Hammer Horror films and their ilk, as well as his fascination with occultist Aleister Crowley, it wasnt exactly short on talent: it starred sonorously-voiced thespian Simon Callow and was directed and co-written by Monty Python collaborator Julian Doyle. It even premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. So why dont more people talk about it?

The simple answer is that its not very good. Callow plays Professor Oliver Haddo, who, after stepping into a virtual reality device thats been secretly fiddled with by occultists, becomes the shaven-headed reincarnation of Aleister Crowley. As he marches around ranting about sex, God and the black arts and generally being a bit of a dickhead, its up to one of Haddos students and an American doctor to stop the chemical wedding: a ritual that will make him more powerful.

On paper, it was an homage to the British horror movies Bruce watched as a kid The Devil Rides Out, The Wicker Man (recognise that title?), anything that came out of venerated studio Hammer Films. They had Dracula, blood, fangs, sex and the devil, Bruce said of those creaky but endearing old movies he grew up watching. All this stuff was like, Oh my God! That is so shocking!, but it really kind of turned us on in secret. As kids, youd be forbidden to watch it but, of course, it would be interesting, and youd watch it.

And Chemical Wedding did share some of their characteristics, not least an over-the-top approach that bordered on camp. Callow turns in a performance that raises the bar on the idea of overacting, while the sci-fi set of the virtual-reality lab looks like its been lifted straight from a Tom Baker-era Doctor Who serial.

And theres the relentless desire to shock. Chemical Wedding has a plot, but it's mostly there so the film can hurry from graphic sexual taboo to graphic sexual taboo. You see it from the moment a reincarnated Crowley gets introduced. He marches to a lecture to the subversive soundtrack of Handels Hallelujah Chorus. Then, he proceeds to parody the To be or not to be soliloquy from Hamlet, changing it to To pee or not to pee and uttering the word cum innumerable times before pissing on his students. Its supposed to be shocking, but its just childish.

The rest of the film is no less highbrow a slideshow of orgies, threesomes and and middle-aged men wanking into fax machines while getting flogged. This is the first transmission of semen by fax, Bruce promised one interviewer ahead of the films release.

The singer actually started writing the movie in the mid-90s, after his exit from Iron Maiden in the wake of the Fear Of The Dark album and tour. He teamed up with Doyle who directed the video for Iron Maidens 1988 single Can I Play With Madness to work on the script, originally under the working title The Number Of The Beast.

We changed that because a friend of Julians had written a novel called The Chemical Wedding, he continued. He said, I think thisll be a great title for the movie. Its not as obvious as The Number Of The Beast, but the chemical part refers to alchemy: an alchemical wedding.

It would take well over a decade before the idea came to fruition, by which time Dickinson had released a solo album in 1998 titled The Chemical Wedding (confusingly based on the works of visionary 18th century poet William Blake rather than Aleister Crowley) and rejoined Iron Maiden the following year.

The movie was eventually released in 2008 (it was titled Crowley in the US). Dickinsons involvement gave it a bigger profile than it would otherwise have had (as well as his co-writing credit, he also has cameo roles as a Blind Man and Landlord according IMDB.com credits, though theyre seemingly so fleeting as to be invisible). It didnt shy away from leaning on Bruces day job either Maidens Can I Play With Madness and The Wicker Man both appeared on the soundtrack, while Dickinsons own 1998 track Chemical Wedding was, unsurprisingly, the title song.

None of that impressed the reviewers. The reception that greeted Chemical Wedding could charitably be described as lukewarm. It just feels like it was shot from an unpolished first draft, wrote Den Of Geek. The Guardian was slightly kinder: Its unintentionally funny and indifferently actedBut its never boring.

Fans were equally unimpressed despite its Cannes premiere, Chemical Wedding came and went without much noise. Part of this could be down to the fact that torture porn was the biggest trend in horror movies at the time, with a new Saw movie seemingly arriving every year. But its mainly because the film is a bit of a stinker. Even today, its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at a lowly 30 per cent.

The movies biggest cheerleader at the time was Bruce Dickinson himself. In brief: its funny, its gross think Withnail & Imeets The Wicker Man. It's The Da Vinci Code, but good, he enthused, though many who watched it would dispute funny and good. But even the normally loquacious been strangely silent about it ever since and theres certainly never been any talk of a sequel. All things considered, its probably for the best.

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The first transmission of semen by fax: the story of Bruce Dickinson's batsh*t crazy horror movie Chemical Wedding - Louder