What happens when the plants we surround ourselves with become something far more sinister?

Authors Lauren Jane Barnett and Tony Mardon, the creative minds behind Natural Thorn Killers, have explored the darker side of the botanical world, uncovering the strange, unsettling and downright terrifying ways that plants have found their way into horror. From deadly flora to botanical folklore, their work invites us to look at the natural world in a very different way.

And if you’ve ever wondered what secrets might be hiding among the plants of one of London’s most famous botanical gardens, there’s no better place to explore them than Kew Gardens.

This month, Lauren and Tony are bringing their fascination with plant horror to life with a very special Plant Horror Tour at Kew Gardens, offering guests the chance to discover the sinister stories, myths and murderous plants lurking beneath the beauty of the gardens.

I caught up with Lauren and Tony to talk about Natural Thorn Killers, their love of plant horror, the fascinating relationship between nature and the macabre and what inspired them to delve into the darker side of the botanical world.

The Kew Gardens Plant Horror Tour is coming up this month and places are limited, with tickets already selling fast. If you’re a lover of horror, folklore, plants or simply fancy seeing Kew from a darker perspective, now is the time to book your place!

Dates and Times

Friday 9 and 24 October 2026
4pm to 5.30pm | 6.30pm to 8pm

Thursday 29 and Friday 30 October 2026
2.30pm to 4pm | 5pm to 6.30pm

Prices

Members: £40

Non-members: £46

Tickets include booking fees and general admission to the Gardens from 10am

Book Now to avoid disappointment!

1 Let’s start with the obvious question. How did the idea for Natural Thorn Killers come about? What was it that first made you think there was a whole book to be written about plants in horror? Was there one particular film that made you think, “Yes… there is an entire book hiding in this subject”?

LAUREN – I had the idea while I was writing my first book Death Lines: Walking London’s Horror History. I kept coming across horror movies with plants in them – Triffids and creeping vines in Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, and even Hawthorne bush in Satanic Rights of Dracula. My dad was an avid gardener so I grew up with plants everywhere and I think that helped too. Eventually I started having a look and when I realised there were so many movies, and so many iconic ones, I was shocked no one had written a book about it. There would be a mention or two in Nature horror books, but these fierce flora deserved a spotlight of their own.

TONY – Yes It was Lauren’s idea. She had it before we met but when she asked if I’d like to write it with her I immediately said yes. I’ve always loved plants in horror. There is something fascinating about the idea that nature can be so malignant. There is a lot of literature about animals in horror so this seemed like a natural progression. And plants are pretty unstoppable- the way they spread- The Jordy Verrill segment of Creepshow is a great example of that. Why Lauren asked me to co-write I don’t know – I didn’t even have a fungal infection!!!

2 Your book covers an enormous range of films, encompassesing everything from killer trees and alien flora to fungi and cornfields. How did you decide which films made the cut?

LAUREN – I think the biggest thing was deciding not to do TV or any movies that didn’t have a theatrical release (with the exception of films released during Covid). If we had tried to do either of those we would still be watching things, and we would have six volume son our hands. It did mean we had to wave goodbye to great episodes of Dr Who and The Last of Us, but it also meant we had a selection of works that were all thinking about plant horror with the same constraints: time limits, theatrical quality, and cinema viewership. When you aren’t getting multiple episodes and only have two hours, you need those plant monsters to really punch and make a quick impression.

TONY – We included films like In The Tall Grass that debuted on streaming networks too- in another time, they would have had cinematic releases so that seemed warranted.

3 What’s the most underrated plant-horror film?

LAUREN – Oh that’s tough! Can I pick two? Splinter was an unexpected hit for me. It’s a really unsettling fungal horror that combines a trapped-room situation with body horror and a growing infection. I’m not sure how we found it, but I hadn’t heard of it until well into our research, and I’m shocking it isn’t more popular. The other one I have to mention is Little Otik. It’s Jan Svankmajer, but it’s not one of his better known films, and it’s deeply unsettling. A young couple are struggling to have a baby and the woman becomes obsessed with a tree-root as her child, and it actually does come to life, but has a growing appetite that starts to include blood. The film is surreal and funny, blending in the childish fairy tale with some genuinely tense and unpleasant moments. It’s very unique and surprisingly poignant.

TONY – They are great choices. I really like the Korean film, Acacia. It’s a heartbreaking film about a family who adopt a young boy and his obsession with an Acacia tree, the tree being a Metaphor for the family’s disintegration. I’ve got a soft spot for Maneater of Hydra, The Mutations and Matango (1963) too! Matango is based on a wonderful short story by William Hope Hodgson about an unstoppable fungus called The Voice in the Night…and I am petrified of fungus.

4 What surprised you most during your research for the book? Tell us a fun fact…

LAUREN – I love finding out about unique plants and the Machineel Tree was the favourite discovery for me. It’s called “The Tree of Death” because it has a milky sap that is so caustic it will burn your skin. People and animals have even been burnt by rain that’s fallen off the branches and collected the sap. It’s wildly toxic, and the idea of this tree is similar to the fictional ‘China tree’ in the “Rappaccini’s Daughter” segment of Twice Told Tales. In that film Vincent Price has to wear gloves because even touching the tree will kill you. That film was also a delightful Gothic surprise, so between discovering the film and the tree related to it, it was fun.

That being said, I was probably most shocked to learn there was a soft-core porn version of Little Shop of Horrors

TONY – Ah yes! The soft porn! I remember it well. The sheer extent of plant-horror surprised me. There are the obvious examples like The Day of the Triffids, Evil Dead, Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes but that just scratches the surface. My fear of fungus was brought to the surface many times when writing the ‘Panic Shroom’ section; I really hate the thought of fungus growing on or in ‘us’. I was surprised by how much some of the visuals in films like Gaia and The Privilege upset me.

5 What’s your favourite plant related horror film?

LAUREN – Choosing favourite films is so hard because I love so many for such different reasons! If we are going for the one I’ve probably watched the most, it would have to be Little Shop of Horrors, the 1986 musical. I loved it as a kid, and was in a local production of it as well, so I know the songs. It’s a good story, and has hilarious characters, but who doesn’t love Audrey II? Of all the alien-invasion monsters out there, it is probably the most beloved.

TONY – .…that’s tough. I might have to say Creepshow. It’s been a favourite of mine ever since I first saw it as a child. The Jordy Verrill segment manages to tread the line brilliantly between comedy and the terror created by an unrelenting, otherworldly, all-consuming grass… Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the original and the 1978 remake, are two favourites also. Oh, controversially, the ‘Mel’ segment from Tales that Witness Madness is a favourite too.

6 You’re taking Natural Thorn Killers off the pages and into Kew Gardens. What can people expect from the tour that they won’t get from reading the book?

LAUREN – One of the amazing things about Kew Gardens is the vast number of plant species they have, so you get to see everything from Venus Flytraps and Suzuki Grasses to The Dutchman’s Pipe and some alpine creepers. There are also plants like the Titan Arum, or corpse flower, which smells of rotting flesh to attract flies. The plant hasn’t inspired horror movies yet, be we couldn’t resist adding it to the tour. And you get to actually be at Kew, it’s a beautiful location, and even appears briefly in Day of the Triffids, so visiting Kew is well
worth it on any day, but joining the tour means you also get to see something very few people have: The Fungarium. I’ll let Tony talk about that.

TONY – Lauren knows how much I love the fungarium!! The Plant-Horror walk tickets include entry to Kew as well as our tour. Lauren and I will be taking people through Kew, stopping at some beautiful, some deadly and some bizarre plants and fungus that have inspired many of the films from our book. Experiencing these first hand really is fascinating and Lauren and I will, of course, be talking about each one and how they have each influenced horror cinema.

7 You’re going into Kew’s Fungarium to look at parasitic mushrooms. Why are fungi such brilliant horror material?

TONY – As I mentioned earlier, I have a real fear of fungus. There is something horrendous to me about the idea of being ‘grown on’. Even the thought of Athlete’s Foot is terrifying! So when that is amplified for genre films, the terror takes on a far more sinister and deadly reality. And fungus is so ugly! And unstoppable. And damp. And yuck. The Fungarium, which people on the tour will get to experience, is amazing. We will see examples of fungus that have inspired films, in particular…. The Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, commonly known as zombie-ant fungus that literally attaches itself to and grows from the brains of ants and other
small creatures. Truly terrifying! I’m hoping this exposure therapy may help. It hasn’t as of yet.

8 Is there a particular fungus in Kew’s collection that has a particularly fascinating story?

LAUREN – The most flashy is zombie-ant fungus, but I love the mycellial network as a concept. Fungi all interact with one another across a huge ‘map’ – little tendrils of fungus that look like hair and are called mycellia. They stretch over almost the entire earth, just below our feet, and mean that fungi can move resources across miles and miles to keep themselves, and their ecosystem healthy. It’s almost like a giant Earthen nervous system. We still don’t completely understand it, and I find that fascinating.

TONY – I’m all about the flashy.

9 What is the most frightening real plant or fungus people will encounter? What is the most poisonous plant currently growing at Kew?

LAUREN – I suppose it depends on what scares you. I always find cacti frightening. I spent a lot of time in Arizona, and you learn to be wary of these spiky guys. My brother even sat on one once. Or fell on it, more accurately. It’s not fun. Kew has a great collection of cacti in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, but I find the “Creeping Devil” the most sinister on our tour. It grows along the ground, turning the desert area into a stretch of barbed wire. The fact that it basically crawls along the desert is pretty unnerving.

The most poisonous plant at Kew has to be the deadly Machineel tree I talked about earlier. It’s so deadly it’s kept in safe research areas, but we will show off the Dutchman’s pipe, a vine that in 1993 led to at least 100 people getting kidney disease from eating it.

TONY – There is nothing scarier than fungus. Not sure if I mentioned that! I have a soft spot for the fabulous Titan arum too that Lauren mentioned earlier. It’s not dangerous but it is imposing. Interestingly, the Venus Fly Traps are really cute. As long as they don’t evolve into the ones seen in Creepshow 2, they will continue to be cute to me, if not to flies.

10 There are some common plants and trees that everyone knows are poisonous but is there a common garden plant that people might be surprised to discover is actually poisonous?

LAUREN – I always love telling people that Rhubarb is poisonous. The stalks are delicious, as we all know, but the leaves can cause kidney damage if you eat them, so steer clear of anything leafy when it comes to Rhubarb.

Nutmeg is another one. I adore nutmeg, but if you eat a lot of it (and I mean a lot – 5 grams or more) the toxicity builds up and you are in real danger. It can even lead to organ failure. So every time you have some nutmeg in your cooking, you have a touch of the toxic.

TONY – And let’s not forget the foxglove! Also, don’t put Deathcap mushrooms in your bolognese.

11 What are some of the most extraordinary ways plants defend themselves from predators? Are there plants that can effectively “fight back” when they’re attacked?

LAUREN – Back home in North Carolina, Poison Ivy and Poison Oak are very common, and those are plants that fight back even if you are being friendly. You so much as graze a leaf, or give it an admiring touch, and you are covered in red itchy welts, sometimes for days. To keep predators away, Poison Ivy and Oak are covered in a resin that induces an allergic reaction, and not a fun one. Some people are severely allergic and can find their throat closing. We learned to hike in long trousers even in the high heat.

TONY – When we were hiking on a mountain in California, Lauren and her Uncle pointed out some Poison Oak and told me to steer clear. Then they told me about the Rattle Snakes. And the bears.

12 Is there one plant you’re particularly excited to introduce people to on the tour?

LAUREN – The fungi will be incredibly exciting because the team at Kew’s Fungarium have put together some amazing samples for us, but outside of that unique opportunity, I’m excited about the Kitchen Garden. I can’t wait to talk about all the horror films that were inspired by vegetables we eat every day. It makes you look at corn differently…

TONY – For me it is a bit of everything. We have planned the tour to include a huge range of flora and fungus, each of which are in some way connected to or have inspired moments and films within the horror genre. I’m looking forward to talking about these connections whilst being in amongst the amazing gardens around Halloween…hoping we survive the killer tomatoes…

Natural Thorn Killers is available at Amazon £16.99