RICHARD Cottier, the Dark Lord of the hugely successful Farmageddon horror attraction, is leaving the howling fields of Down Holland for pastures new.
The Crosby-born producer and director will run a new UK-wide horror attraction called House of the Dead which will plans to launch hereabouts later this year, before, presumably, embarking on world domination.
Cottier, a former Southport College student, turned the Farmer Ted's children's play centre in West Lancs, into a screamfest of a different sort when he co-created Farmageddon eight years ago, bringing millions of quids into the blood-soaked barns.
By last autumn, the annual shockfest had gone from an initial dozen cast members to 150. The attraction has been consistently voted one of the best of its kind in the world with more than 40,000 willing victims each year.
Now Cottier is teaming up with the head of Farmageddon's oppo in Sussex, Sally Duguid, who ran Shocktoberfest, and Paul Jamieson a freelance Makeup FX artist, set designer/builder and prop maker.
House Of The Dead will specialise in "dark entertainment" and marketing. "The business will create scare attractions, corporate events, films, set design, scripts and theatre," it says. It also plans to partner with other event organisers to produce the horror/Halloween element of events including corporate contracts and theme park style projects.
Cottier says he left Farmaggedon after being headhunted to work within the creative design team on phase one of London Paramount's ambitions plan to create the UK’s largest theme park resort.
After that came a whole host of other opportunities to scare the living daylights out of willing victims.
"I’m immensely proud of the achievements that I and the team have made with Farmaggedon," he said, "turning an empty barn into an award-winning, multi-million pound event which has been voted one of the top 25 haunted attractions on Earth.
"We brought many jobs to Merseyside and Lancashire and entertained the masses. I wish Farmaggedon and all involved with it long and sustained success and I look forward to seeing the developments of the business from where I left off."
