Paranoia Horror Film Festival Report - March 2009

On a cloudy Saturday I headed to Long Beach for the first ever Paranoia Horror Film Festival! As I reached the harbor, the massive Queen Mary loomed up in front of me, glinting in the sun that had started to break through the clouds.

After walking up the gigantic ship and having a little trouble finding the location of the film fest on the ship, I signed in, got my press pass and began exploring the festival. That day, the films were being shown in the cavernous Grand Salon. The screening room was cavernous, its tall ceiling held up by big columns with a massive movie screen set up on one wall.

First, I saw a block of short films. For the second time I got to see Richard Gale’s fantastic short Criticized, about a filmmaker that takes revenge on a film critic for giving his horror movie a bad review. The second time watching this was just as fun as the first, when I saw it at SiliCon, especially getting to see a new audiences’ reaction to the ocular horror scene involving a paperclip! The short was extremely well-written and directed. It even won best short at Paranoia! I definitely look forward to what Gale does next.

http://www.criticizedmovie.com/

With few exceptions, all of the shorts were enjoyable but a few really stood out. I finally got to finally see Peter Podgursky’s Cheerbleeders and it was every bit as good as I’d hoped. After Criticized, this was my second favorite short. It tells the tale of two goth friends, Penny and Devon, who are outcasts in their jock and cheerleader infested high school. Penny brings a family heirloom to school for a presentation. It is an old, Greek urn depicting the Cult of Dionysus, but its black, goopy contents gets dumped on Devon’s head by one of the jocks. Suddenly, all of the popular girls are head-over-heels for Devon and he quickly becomes the most popular guy in school. Penny realizes that Devon’s newfound popularity has to do with the Cult of Dionysus…can she break the spell before Devon uses his cheerleaders to get revenge on the entire school? This short has amazing production values! Not only that, but the direction is crisp and professional, as is pretty much everything else in the film. The actors, especially Laurel Vail as Penny and Wyatt Fenner as Devon, were absolutely spectacular. I really hope to see them more in the future. I loved the characters and the dialogue was hilarious! The special FX were also pretty amazing, even featuring a decapitated head getting kicked through a field goal! Definitely track this film down and watch it!

http://www.cheerbleeders.com/

Schattenkind, a film by Jesse Eisenhardt, was an excellent ghost story about three friends on a cross-country road trip who stop at a seemingly abandoned shack to spend the night…and discover they aren’t alone. Schattenkind features characters who were developed just enough, a great storyline, plenty of creepy moments and some nice special FX.

http://www.whydoyouhide.net/

Reflections, directed by Barry L. Caldwell, is a more subtle short and deals with a woman who can see the future in the reflections of mirrors. She loathes her “gift,” even though she could help people if she chose to. It has a wonderfully shocking ending that is built up by the tension-filled scenes preceding it. The only thing I didn’t like in the short was the repetitive piano music used throughout. With the exception of that, this was a great film and what the god-awful Mirrors should have strived to be.

http://www.myspace.com/reflections_movie

Anyone There?, a film by Holger Frick, is your basic psycho-stalking-a-gorgeous-girl story, but luckily shakes things up a bit when the victim decides to strike back at the psycho.

http://www.istdajemand.de/

After the short film block, I needed to give my butt a rest so I headed off to explore the ship. It was fun and a little bit creepy exploring all the dark corridors of the Queen Mary! FYI – you can pretty much go anywhere on the Queen Mary for free! If you are ever near Long Beach you should definitely stop and explore the ship! As I wandered, I eventually found Paranoia’s small exhibitor hall, which featured Ken Foree, Tony Todd and Sybil Danning signing autographs as well as a few vendors. There weren’t too many people wandering around, but I think that was due to the fact that the exhibitor hall was so hard to find. Better and larger signage definitely would have helped.

After wandering the ship and grabbing a veggie sandwich at the onboard deli, I headed back to the Grand Salon to check out iMurders. iMurders, directed by Robbie Bryan, has been making the festival rounds but this was my first time seeing it. Many of the cast and crew were in attendance as well, including the director, composer Harry Manfredini and actors Tony Todd and Brooke Lewis . I have to say though, this movie was very disappointing. Though it featured the familiar faces of Tony Todd, William Forsythe and others, it was pretty much a confusing, convoluted mess. There were some good parts and good performances, but nothing could save the slow pace, glaring plot holes and overall boring storyline of the film.

http://www.imurdersthemovie.com/

Next, I got to see The Beacon, about a couple who recently lost their young son. They move to the Beacon Apartments where the wife is haunted by a little boy about the same age as her lost son. Is this apparition due to her feelings of guilt over her lost son and all in her head or is there something more sinister in the Beacon Apartments? This was a taut thriller with a really great ending! It reminded me a bit of a mix of 70′s cult film The Sentinel, Roman Polanski’s The Tenant as well as some J-Horror like Dark Water thrown in for good measure. It won the top prize at Paranoia with good reason!

Though I was only able to attend the film festival one day, there were many other fantastic horror films that were screened, including Midnight Movie, Dark Reel, Horror Business, Death in Charge, Viscera and many, many more, plus celebrity guests like Tiffany Shepis, Shannon Lark, Rena Riffel, Lance Henriksen and more!

Paranoia Horror Film Festival was a blast and its setting on the Queen Mary made it all that much more exciting! The only things I might suggest for future years would be better signage so that attendees can find their way around easier and maybe a list of locations on the ship where the film festival will take place on the Paranoia website so people know exactly where they are going. Other than that, Paranoia was a success and I look forward to attending it for many years to come!

Visit Paranoia Fest’s Official Site!

Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors Report - April 2008

Me at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors!

This year’s Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors in Southern California marked the first year the horror convention was held at the L.A. Convention Center. Organizers Creation Entertainment and Fangoria Magazine wanted to give more fans the opportunity to attend the usually sold out event. Also, the bigger space meant more vendors would be there, enticing attendees with their gore-drenched goods!

The intentions were good, and the larger venue would have fit a heck of a lot more fans, if only those fans had actually shown up! Unfortunately, this year’s event was pretty barren of attendees. Whether it was the change of venue, lack of big horror movies or stars at the event, attendance was definitely down this year.

George Romero signing autographs

I spoke to many attendees, including fans, press and vendors, and most complained of the convention center’s inability to accommodate the horror crowd. On Friday, there was only one place open for food and they only carried pre-packaged salads and sandwiches. Despite other conventions going on, nothing else was open. On Saturday, they opened up more of the small cafeteria, but even their Starbucks stayed closed (and don’t even get attendees started on the lack of bar!).

Though many grumbled about the lack of good eats and places to sit and hang out, the actual panels and presentations were quite good, though most felt a little stale. Most horror fans don’t need to see the girls from Rob Zombie’s Halloween after the disappointing panel last year. Does anyone even care anymore? The empty auditorium pretty much answered that question. Also, the usual horror celebrities had panels or were in attendance – Mr. George A. Romero (yes, he showed up this year!), Tony Todd, Ken Foree, Clive Barker, etc., etc. – but many horror fans have seen these stars multiple times, and so there was no real draw at the panels this year.

I did catch the panels on the upcoming Black Waters of Echo’s Pond (with actors Danielle Harris, the “Babysitter Twins,” James Duval, writer Sean Clark, etc.), Dead Air (including Corbin Bernsen and Patricia Tallman) and the available-on-DVD Gutterballs (including the cast and director Ryan Nicholson). I gotta say, Black Waters and Dead Air look pretty kick ass, and of course you know how we feel about the ultra-gory Gutterballs.

 Cast and crew of Black Waters of Echo's Pond

I also caught producer Rob Tapert (Evil Dead, the upcoming Drag Me to Hell) who assured the audience that while he may not know what the “next big thing” in horror is, he definitely thinks we’ll have fun with Drag Me to Hell. The Psycho reunion panel was also pretty amazing to witness, as it assembled guests from all four Psycho films and was hosted by our good friend Rob G., who is currently hard at work on a documentary on the Psycho films. Angus Scrimm (The Tall Man from the Phantasm films) graced attendees with his delightful presence over the weekend. It’s funny to think how terrifying he is in those films but what a sweetheart he is in real life!

The absolute highlight of the weekend was an independent film called Red Velvet that wowed the packed audience in the screening room. This whip-smart horror film played with horror conventions while delivering some very satisfying kill scenes and an entirely original killer. The cast and producer were also present to sign autographs during the convention.

 Wicked Lake cast and crew

Another highlight was being able to see friends I only get to see about once a year. The Icons of Fright guys, the Horror Yearbook kids, Mel House and a bunch of new people I had the pleasure to meet. It did seem that a few familiar faces were missing, though.

On an immensely positive note, Shannon Lark won Fangoria’s first ever Spooksmodel Contest!! Congrats, Shannon! You deserve it! If you’re not familiar with Shannon, you will be!

The switch from the Burbank Marriott to the L.A. Convention Center for Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors was not an easy one this year. I hope that this was due to growing pains and that all the kinks get worked out by next year’s convention, because the friendly, homey vibe that Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors usually is known for was seriously lacking this year. You can’t blame Fangoria or Creation Entertainment, though, as the panels were pretty cool. I think it’s more getting used to the bigger venue and the venue catering more to convention attendees (like having some freakin’ places to eat open!!).

A lot of people also didn’t attend the convention this year, and I think this was due to the fact that the horror genre has been inundated with Hollywood remakes/sequels, things are a bit on the slow side for the genre at the moment and people just didn’t show up at the new digs this year. I sincerely hope that things will pick up next year and more will attend, because the more the gorier!!

All that said, there are some freakin’ fun horror movies on the horizon (that aren’t watered-down remakes or sequels…yayyy!!) that I am very much looking forward to! And there were some wonderful panels and people in attendance this year as well.

I just can’t wait until next year when the Weekend of Horrors really settles in to its new digs and is able to stretch its legs a bit.

See you all next year!

SiliCon 2007 Report

SiliCon was a blast! A blurry, gone-by-way-too-fast blast!

SiliCon was my first convention appearance as a “guest,” so I was pretty excited/nervous. I, along with my two cohorts/bodyguards hopped into the car at 4am to drive up from Orange County to the Bay Area. After a smooth drive up the 5 freeway, with plenty of fast food hash browns and enough coffee and Rockstars to fuel a busload of caffeine addicts, we arrived in San Jose around 10:30am, checked in and poked around our room.

At 2pm, we headed downstairs to the Green Room, where we got our press badges and ran into Brett and Rob of the Popcorn Review. They regaled us with stories of their new house in L.A. and their custom-built stripper pole. Oh dear…

The convention was still being set up, so we wandered around a bit and met up with Grant, the organizer extraordinaire of the con. He gave us a sneak peek behind the scenes and let us into some areas that were still being set-up. We already saw a lot of people in costume for the cosplay aspect of the con, including a very convincing Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka get-up.

The horror side of the con kicked off with a screening of Slayer. Director Ed Peduzzi, whom I was excited to meet, unfortunately couldn’t attend, which was a real bummer. So instead, we decided to grab some grub at the hotel restaurant. I said hello to some other people, including the lovely Mr. Joe Flynn and Molly, Wil and Murder from Horror Yearbook, before digging into a sandwich and fries, my first real meal of the day.

By then it was around 5:30pm, and we were all exhausted from being up so early and the loooong drive up. We crashed for a few hours before the SiliCon Short Film Festival, which I was judging. After a Rockstar, I was ready to watch 2 hours of short films, baby! My fellow judges included author and all-around sweetie Gregory Solis (Rise and Walk), the crackin’ wise duo of Brett and Robert of the Popcorn Review, director Michael Paul Girard (Oversexed Rugsuckers from Mars) and storyboard artist Neil D’Monte (Pirates of the Caribbean 1 & 2, Day of the Dead remake, Night of the Living Dead 3-D).

Two Rockstars later, all the films had been seen (there were some pretty cool ones!) and the grand prize winner of the Fest was a short called Criticized by director Richard Gale. Criticized (www.criticizedmovie.com) was an amazing short that told of a critic that gave a scathing review of a horror film, which didn’t sit too well with the filmmaker who takes his revenge in a very eye-popping way. In second place was Grace, the excellent short by director Paul Solet, and third was The Pit and the Pendulum, a stop-motion film based on Poe’s classic tale.

After the film fest, I was wiped out, so after saying hi to a few more people, I completely sacked out. We slept in a bit Saturday morning, but managed to rouse ourselves for breakfast (with plenty of coffee for me!). It seemed that there were a lot of problems with the audio/visual equipment, so a lot of the films I was looking forward to finally seeing on a big screen didn’t even play. Bummer.

On Saturday, I did catch Michelle Fatale’s excellent film The Cleaner, starring Kristin Burke and Shannon Lark. Though there were some technical difficulties, the crowd absolutely loved the short and they even had a fun Q & A afterward with Fatale and most of the cast. Since the hotel staff was having so many difficulties with the audio/visual equipment, among other technical difficulties, and since I had already seen most of the films screening at the con, we decided to slip out after lunch and take a tour of the Winchester Mystery House! It’s highly recommended if you are ever in San Jose!

We got back around dinner and met up with Jeff Smith, director of Stupid Teenagers Must Die! and their lovely PR rep, Sara Parrell at the bar. Saturday night is traditionally party central at SiliCon, so we began to prepare ourselves for the festivities…

On Floor 2 everyone began opening up their rooms for party-goers and offering up alcoholic drinks for guests. The Klingon room was by far the best of the night, with super-strong drinks being handed out like candy (with proper ID, of course) along with Klingon songs sung by everyone dressed up. You haven’t lived until a huge guy dressed in a Klingon suit prepares a drink named “Revenge” for you while singing about said drink.

Hanging out at the bar with the Horror Yearbook crew, we learned how one of their staff members had allegedly had a run-in with the Black Devil Doll (www.blackdevildoll.com) crew after commenting how one of their stripper actresses looked like a transvestite on their posters. Everyone was buzzing about the film’s trailer, though, which looks to be exactly as advertised on their site, “violent, misogynistic, sleazy.”

Also got to chat a bit with director Mel House and actor Tim Wrobel of Closet Space (www.closetspacemovie.com)– really fun guys to hang out with! Around midnight I even caught a screening of Stupid Teenagers Must Die! at the Midnight Movie Massacre, which was a lot of fun!!

Everyone was up ‘til the wee hours of the morning, so none of us stumbled out of bed until late Sunday morning. I couldn’t stick around on Sunday because of a previous engagement, but we managed to grab some grub before saying our goodbyes and heading out.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of the convention, except for those above. I don’t know why, but I didn’t pull out my camera once for the festivities!! Hmmm…guess this means I’ll have to go back next year!!
SiliCon showcased a very close-knit group of horror enthusiasts, and I was very happy to see familiar faces again, along with some new ones. It was definitely a pleasure to attend and I thank both HorrorYearbook.com and SiliCon for having me!

Fangoria Weekend of Horrors Report

Yesterday, for the first time, I ventured to the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors! After waking up early and making the drive to Los Angeles, I found myself at the Burbank Airport Marriott surrounded by like-minded people…all horror-loving freaks!

 Eli Roth Hostel II panel

My first order of business was to pop into the Hostel II panel with director Eli Roth and stars Bijou Phillips and Vera Jordanova. I was a bit early, so I got to catch the last part of Heather Langenkamp’s (the star of Nightmare on Elm Street) Q & A. She was very personable, friendly and open and still looked fantastic! Next was the Hostel II panel. Out came two buff, hulking men wearing leather aprons. One carried a wicked hammer and the other a long strand of chain. Both had surgical masks over their faces and both looked very menacing…and they are two of the torturers from the film! Eli Roth and his two leading ladies soon took their seats on stage and began answering questions from the audience. All three of them seemed very excited about the movie and happy to be at the convention. Roth encouraged all young filmmakers in the audience to never give up their dreams and not to let anything get in their way. He also told a funny story about sneaking into the Fangoria convention when he was still a struggling filmmaker and did hilarious, spot-on impressions of Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch. A sneak peek at Hostel II was also shown, which, along with Roth’s excitement, only made me more anxious to see Hostel II.

Me, Danny of Horror Fanatics and Michelle Fatale

After that I had time to traipse around, look at all the pretty merch, stop in to say hi to our friends at Mangled Angels and the Living Dead Girlz and have some lunch. After that it was to the bar to meet up with Heidi Martinuzzi of Pretty/Scary and Shannon Lark of Living Dead Girlz and the Viscera Film Festival. Then it was back to wandering the booths and picking up some cool souvenirs and freebies. There were lots of famous faces wandering about – gothic minstrel/author Voltaire, horror darling Debbie Rochon, Doug Bradley (Pinhead from Hellraiser fame), Rider Strong (of the upcoming Borderland), Tony Todd (of the upcoming Hatchet, of Candyman and The Devil’s Rejects fame), the cast of Rob Zombie’s Halloween including Danielle Harris, Giuseppe Andrews (from Cabin Fever), director Ryan Schifrin of Abominable  and tons more!

 Me and director Ryan Shifrin

After wandering a bit, I made my way to the next couple of panels, including a Horror Composers panel, a Hatchet panel and sneak peek and the Rob Zombie/Halloween panel. The Hatchet panel was by far the most entertaining, with writer/director Adam Green getting the audience pumped with his enthusiasm. The movie itself, set to be released September 7th, 2007, looks wicked awesome! The sneak peak shown to the audience was met with a roar of approval from the crowd and was a fantastically gruesome and bloody clip! Stars Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, Joel David Moore, Tamara Feldman and special FX creator John Carl Buechler joined Green on stage. This is one movie that I am wholeheartedly looking forward to and I hope it gets a great response from horror fans, because it looks like it aims to please!

 Me, WiL and Molly from Horror Yearbook

The Halloween panel was a bit of a let down, as Rob Zombie wasn’t as enthusiastic or responsive to the audience’s questions as Roth or Green were. Still, it was a thrill to see Zombie on stage along with cast members (left to right in photo below) Kristina Klebe, Hanna Hall, Danielle Harris, Scout Taylor-Compton, Sherri Moon Zombie and cutie Daeg Faerch (Rob Zombie on far right of photo). I think Faerch was the most excited to be there and definitely gave the best answers to fans’ questions.

 Rob Zombie's Halloween panel

After the remaining panels I headed back to the bar for some mingling…Met a fine bunch of people including Danny from Horror-Fanatics.com, the lovely Michelle Fatale, the director of Guardian of the Realm, Ted Smith, the director and writer for Closet Space, Mel House and Jason Stewart, Jolene from the Flesh Farm the wonderful Molly Celaschi and WiL from HorrorYearbook.com, the Dread Central guys and so many more! There are so many people I missed seeing and didn’t get a chance to talk to, like the Icons of Fright crew, who came all the way from the East Coast, “Flick Chick Staci” (or Staci Wilson) whom I spotted running around and lots of other familiar looking folks whom I didn’t have a chance to talk to. I’m glad I got to spend some quality time with the folks I did meet, though! And to anyone I missed, there’s always next year!

I ended the night knowing I had made some great new friends, I had attending my very first horror convention and I had spread the word just a little bit more about Fatally-Yours.com and our love for horror. It was a fun time and restored my faith that yes, there are horror fans out there just like me (they seem hard to come by where I live). This Weekend of Horrors was truly memorable and was an amazing and overwhelming experience, one that I look forward to repeating next year!