 We woke up pretty damn early on Saturday (the event began on Friday -- we'd all taken off work), hesitant to return to the bowels in fear of using up whatever limited interest we had in the festivities too early in the day. For a while, we just glanced at the television, tried to figure out why Maury was on two channels at once, got cleaned up, went back to bed, rinsed and repeated, rah rah rah. Funny -- on the drive down there, we were sure we'd be bored of the convention within 15 minutes of getting there. Who knew it'd be so much fun? Finally, whatever we drank the night before left our systems either by way of dick or sweat glands, and we were ready for more stupid action.  We trekked back towards the giant dealer room to kill a few hours before the big events started up, immediately noticing that, in general, the prices had gone down significantly from the day before. On Sunday, they'd be even lower. Seems like the dealers start getting antsy as time trickles away, worried that they won't make enough of a profit to cover renting six feet of space in a room that has six hundred trillion feet of space. I'm assuming this phenomenon is prevalent at all kinds of conventions, horror or not, so a word of advice: Unless you're pretty sure your desired items could go out of stock, hold off on the purchases for as long as possible. There's a certain amount of haggling allowed, too. I didn't get into it much, because these dealers knew the game -- if someone tried to haggle, their first reaction was to act insulted. Only if you showed real signs of skipping a purchase would they even consider it, and to be frank, the kind of discounts they allowed weren't worth putting on Academy-recognized performances. I'd rather just spend the extra five bucks and avoid walking away with the strong desire to choke someone. Couple of random things I spotted: A man with many masks, a tub full of cheap Real Ghostbusters watches, great magazines, and something I couldn't resist -- an Inhumanoids "Granok" figure, which now rests down my pants and will remain there for months. I've decided to leave the 5.00 sticker on his chest as a testament to how beauty doesn't always come at high prices. Actually, I'm just lazy and it's stuck on there really good. But the sentiment is worth Hallmarking.  Shown above is one of the very best of the dealer tables, run by people who just had no idea what to specialize in, so instead, they sold everything. Incense burners shaped like Lucifer, Count Chocula bobblehead figures, Child's Play 2 promotional bumper stickers...you name it. My spending habits have been well-documented all over X-E, but even my friends -- far less interested in cluttering their homes with useless crap that'll embarrass 'em whenever people visit -- found themselves unable to resist the temptation to buy something, anything. It's like having to pass a dirty, filthy, grimy hot dog truck on the way to work everyday. Eventually, the sight of it wears you down. Eventually, you buy a hot dog. You can't be surrounded with this crap for 72 hours and not give in. You can't stare at the picture above for too long without noticing its unintentional tribute to the "Where's Waldo" franchise. I see you, old man. I didn't see you when I took the picture, but I see you now, old man.  The Seedy Underbelly of the Horror Convention Circuit? The guy up above is Steve Dash, who played the sack-hooded Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part II -- one of my favorite horror movies ever. He's seen here signing Sideshow Collectibles' ultraswank 12" Jason doll from Part II, and Steve could only grind his teeth at the sight of whom was credited for the role on the side of the box: Warrington Gillette. Yeah, this guy Warrington got the screen credit for playing Jason in the film and always has, but in truth, he was only in the film for the very last scene where an unmasked Jason crashes through the window to snag the unsuspecting heroine. Most, or all of the other scenes were handled by Steve Dash, who's become increasingly annoyed with Gillette through the years. Remember, these conventions are the bread and butter for many of these folks. Pissed that Warrington never acknowledged the truth about his role, to fans or to Sideshow Collectibles, Steve's made it his mission to get the word out. Kind of a silly thing to have the big death battle over, but check out Steve's official forum and Harrington's official forum if you've got a few hours to kill and don't mind being very, very confused. The short version: Just a few days ago (after "our" convention), Warrington finally apologized. I know it's a boring story if you're not really into these movies, but Steve also took part in another Q&A session with Betsy and Ari, and again, he was mightily ticked off. On one hand, it seems kind of ridiculous to worry about who was under a cloth mask in a tiny little movie decades ago in a non-speaking mostly-bit part. On the other hand, if you saw how ravenous these horror fans are for the stars -- and how much dough can be brought in from a single convention -- you'd be ticked off, too. For what it's worth, Steve was totally accommodating, offering to be in as many pictures as we wanted, willing to share his best sauce recipes, yadda yadda. If I had to pick a side in the Great Steve Dash/Warrington Gillette Battle For The Ages based on my experience at the convention, I'd draw Steve's face on a red flag and hang it on my car.  The convention was organized and run extremely well. From what I heard, the guy in charge had enlisted the help of old ECW security staffers to make sure nothing got too out of hand, and nope, nothing did. That doesn't mean all of the events didn't go off without a hitch, evidenced by the Q&A session for the "Ladies of The Evil Dead." Yes, the three girls who turned into cackling, undead monsters in the very first movie-run romp from Campbell and Raimi. They were there, and wouldn't you know it, the girls were actually pretty damn witty. The MC for this particular event...well, he may have been over his head. See, Q&A sessions aren't always easy, especially at a convention like this. You're dealing with an audience who wants to see the talent, but you're also dealing with an audience so hardcore that they already know every last nuance of the talent's work on the films they were in. After multiple questions about the infamous Evil Dead tree-rape scene, the well had run dry. The MC saw no raised hands in sight, and fearing awkward silence during a Q&A session, he pulled a little trick out of his sleeve. Bluntly put: It didn't go over well. I'm not even sure how to properly explain what we saw, but the events have already become the stuff of legend. Unable to get anyone to ask a question, the MC announced that the ladies would play a little game he made up. He'd written a couple of different horror-related scripts for the girls to read, playing off the fact that they'd all done a substantial amount of voiceover work throughout their careers. Hmmm. To illustrate his point, a medley of the girls' past voiceover jobs played over the speakers -- just a bunch of mismatched car commercials and whatnot, which just confused the audience (and the girls) to holy hell. Nobody knew what he was getting at exactly, and by the time he announced that one of the girls would be reading her script "improv style," even Ellen Sandweiss ("Cheryl" from The Evil Dead) had to grab a mic and tell the audience that this "wasn't their idea." We were watching this poor MC's life explode before our very eyes, but the insanity hadn't even peaked yet. The MC, now sweating, now facing evil looks from the girls and giggles from the audience, tried to make things right by letting someone in the audience pick the monster the girls would include in his handwritten scripts. A minute later, and he's running the length of the auditorium repeating the phrase, "Carnivore, a man-eating plant!" Keep in mind, I came into the Q&A session in a group of 5. By this point, it was down to 3. The MC kept babbling on about this little game he'd created, not making any sense but refusing to let go. Realizing that he'd completely lost control, he began stuttering on his words, sweating -- I swear, we thought he was seconds away from a heart attack. Then, the big finale: After addressing the girls, he turned to the audience to get the game rolling, only to land his face squarely in the massively powerful blue light beaming towards the stage from the projector machine. "I'm....I'm in the blue!" The light locked on his face and literally pushed him backwards, step by embarrassing step as he tripped over wires and other obstacles. Trust me, the MC could've shit his pants onstage and faced less humiliation. Finally, finally, he canceled whatever sick, twisted game he'd intended on putting us through and returned to a normal Q&A session. Unsurprisingly, there was never a lapse in raised hands from that point forth. Nobody wanted to risk inspiring another round of whatever the fuck that was. Eventually, he came around. The rest of the Q&A went fine, as did the many other events starring this particular MC. Everyone has an off day. I give him credit for toughing it out in a situation where most in his position would've just bolted for another country and hid there until everything blew over.  By late afternoon on Saturday, excitement was at a weekend-high. The modest crowd from Friday had seemingly doubled -- maybe tripled. The lobby area spilled outside with hundreds upon hundreds of horror maniacs. They'd even taken over the lobby piano, evidenced by the amount of times we heard the Halloween theme playing.  The reason for the heightened happiness? A big ass Nightmare on Elm Street reunion. You had Robert Englund, John Saxon, Lisa Wilcox and Amanda Wyss onstage, along with Heather Langenkamp, who never/almost never makes it to conventions, and was treated like a goddess. The crowd for this particular event was just massive -- some people were forced to watch from behind the open doors in the back of the auditorium. We couldn't get seats either, instead standing against the sweaty wall in this boiling hot giant room for two hours as people went batshit for the Elm Street crew. While every guest at the convention was treated like a star, it's safe to say that Robert Englund was the biggest of 'em all. No less charismatic offscreen, Englund had his legions in the palm of his hand, cracking jokes, telling stories and completely justifying the fact that everyone liked him so much. The reunion was probably the convention's highlight, devirginizing Langenkamp to the whole subculture and making her realize that all of the attention she still gets for a few Elm Street flicks maybe isn't such a bad thing. Course, with a crowd this big, sometimes you get a few hecklers -- however unintentional in their offensiveness they may be. There were a few people asking questions who had the entire audience rolling their eyes, whether because the questions were stupid or because the people asking them were too monstrous to be as self-absorbed as they were. The best of the hecklers was some older woman dressing like a much younger woman, probably drugged up but at least drunk, missing teeth, screaming to Englund about how he's "in her nightmares." And she must've thought this was particularly insightful, because she wouldn't stop screaming it. Ever. Only after the people she stood in front of began fighting back did she creep out the exit, probably off to mount one of the horse statues in the front lobby just because she could.  Some of the people at the Q&A session complained that the line to get Englund's autograph was too long (we saw it -- it stretched around the hotel), never realizing the truth about the convention: It was much easier to meet these folks in the hotel bar. Seen above are Robert Englund and Doug "Pinhead" Bradley, downing drinks that my friends paid for. I missed most of the fun, and only after they managed to take the picture above did I believe that they'd really spent an hour chatting it up with Freddy and Pinhead. It's amazing how far buying drinks can take a person. Virtually every special guest made their way to the bar at one point or another. In some cases, they were all about being swarmed with fans. In other cases, they were just there to eat lunch. We'd earlier spotted Doug Bradley sitting at the bar with a nice big hamburger plate, desperately enjoying his few minutes of peace before a few fans totally ruined the moment by screaming his name and running up to him. Worst part is, it's not like Bradley or anyone else could just say "go away." All they can do is smile, nod and shake...even if the last thing they want to do while eating is field questions about the gross priest scene from Hellraiser 3.  Yeah, of course I bought it. It's a "Talking Freddy Doll," made by Matchbox in 1989. I knew twenty bucks was good price for this fine quality item, but only after making the purchase did I see why it only cost that much. The talking mechanism, activated by a pull-string on the doll's back, had been overused and thus only let Freddy spew his catch-phrases at 500 words per minute. Bastards. Freddy joined a garbage bag full of crap I bought, currently sitting by our front door still in said garbage bag. Long story short, I buy too much crap.  Winding down, the last event we hit up was on Sunday afternoon -- an auction. I'm pretty sure it was for charity, and all of the stuff put up for bidding was donated by the dealers. In other words, it was mainly crap that wouldn't otherwise sell, but they managed to get most of the guests to pitch in a few autographs. There wasn't a huge audience for the auction, so we figured we'd be able to win something. First thing up for bids? A concrete skull. Yup. A concrete skull. Most of the items were painfully interesting, but admittedly, a lot of the stuff was going for cheap. After sitting through this for a half an hour or so, I knew there was no way I could leave without bidding on something. And, as fate would have it, just as soon as I came to this realization, the crazy biker running the show lifted a interesting lot over his head: A giant mystery box. Oh no. Soon as I saw the mystery box, I knew it. I knew I had to go home with it. They wouldn't say what it was filled with, but confided that it held not one but two autographs from guests at the event -- and with the way the guys were talking, it seemed like they'd be decent autographs. Not like, security staff signing the convention shirt kind of autographs. We entered the bidding at 20 bucks or so, but there were competitors. At fifty bucks, we were sure we had it, but the damn guy let the auction linger at "going twice" for two full minutes or so. In the end, it took 75 dollars for me to grab mahself a mystery box. It was probably in the top five most expensive lots that went, but how do you turn down a mystery box?  Drunk with auction fever, I could barely muster up the words to ask the rollerskating lady who delivered my mystery box to pose for a picture, instead shaking four twenty-dollar bills in the air and making noises like a injured cat. I guess she understood. I hadn't intended on opening the mystery box while at the auction, because honestly, I felt silly enough having just bought such the thing in a public forum. However, I was soon approached by various bidders who couldn't continue living without knowing what was inside the box, and in fear of starting an international incident, obliged their requests...  Definitely not worth 75 bucks, but the goods weren't that bad. Most of the box was just filled with old VHS horror flicks, but the two autographs were definitely bringers of smiles -- a Pinhead figure with Doug Bradley's sig, and a nice 8x10 of Ms. Langenkamp, signed, sealed, delivered. Soon after the auction, mostly because the box was so damn heavy, we hopped in the car and headed home. This was my first horror convention, and I had an absolute blast. I saw Dee Snyder, I scared Betsy Palmer, and I got a Freddy Krueger doll that says things really fast. It's the trilogy of Great Weekend Things. I know X-E isn't a house built on horror stuff, but if you're at all into it, I definitely recommend checking one of these weird little events out. I'd say more, but after 50,000 words, I don't want to look at my keyboard ever again. - Matt (5/30/05)
|
|
|
