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Convention Report: THE SCOOP ON FANGORIA'S WEEKEND OF HORRORS INCLUDING NEWS ON HELLBOY 2 , MASTERS OF HORROR SEASON 2 AND MORE

Throw in some Living Dead, some great actors, and the reappearance of the PUPPET MASTER DVD BOXED SET, and you've got a hell of a weekend

By SEAN ELLIOTT, Associate Editor
Published 6/6/2006

From Friday June 2^nd to Sunday June 4th, Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors hosted by Creation Entertainment took over the convention center in at the Burbank Hilton in Burbank California. This was a huge horror event drawing in fans from across the US to one location for 3 days of gore, beautiful women, and horror celebrities.  Cynthia Garris, actress and wife of director Mick Garris was on hand on Saturday, which was the busiest day of the event.  Mrs. Garris is no stranger to horror conventions and was pleased at the crowds that Weekend of Horrors had generated.

“This is one of the biggest turn outs I’ve seen in about twenty-five years.” says Garris excitedly. “We've been doing conventions for a long time, but I think there has been a resurgence of interest in the genre lately.”

  

Photos (C) 2006 Will Brattain

[left] Cynthia Garris; [right] The MASTERS OF HORROR (William Malone, Stuart Gordon and Mick Garris) sign autographs for fans

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“Dario [Argento] has finished up his episode, and it may be his splatteriest work yet," says Garris. "[John] Landis did the first one as he did last year.  Dario [Argento] did the second one as he did last year. Landis’ is probably the least comedic thing that he has directed.  It’s very, very different for him and I think it’s going to be good.  It was written by Brent Hanley that wrote FRAILTY, so I’m very excited for John.  The three additional directors for the new season are Tom Holland, he’s doing one from a script by David Skaal based on ICE SCREAM YOU SCREAM WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM.  Ernest Dickerson is doing one that I wrote called the V WORD.  Brad Anderson is doing one based on a short story called SOUND SLIDE.  I’m a huge fan of all of these guys. Their films are really subtle, and original, and unique. It may be even better than last year I’m hoping!”

Of course, MASTERS OF HORROR wasn’t the only horror anthology series, which was given a panel and a showcase at the event.  Fans also got their first taste of what they could expect from TNT’s new NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES FROM THE STORIES OF STEPHEN KING.  The series, which premieres on July 12^th, and then runs each Wednesday at 9/8c, will feature hour-long versions of King’s novelettes and short stories. X-FILES director Rob Bowman is one of the featured directors for the series.

Brain Henson, son of the late MUPPETS creator Jim Henson, is handling the special effects on the series.  This was a bit different from his previous work stated Henson during the panel. 

The two sides of the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD coin were in attendance at the convention. For those not in the know, George A. Romero and John Russo didn’t end up copyright protecting the title NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD when they made the black and white horror classic back in 1968.  As a result, any one that has wanted to make money by using the title of the film, or characters has been able to infringe on the creative talents of the two men who created the zombie genre for horror fans everywhere.  The latest of these unauthorized remakes is at least a creative one, in the form of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D, which stars Sid Haig as a mortician, and loosely adapts the story for a contemporary audience.

In the dealer room however, Russo himself had set up shop with the folks from Avatar comics, who published his original work ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD over the course of the last year. The most exciting news in the world of Romero and Russo LIVING DEAD fans is that the two will be co-authoring a new series about the DEAD, which will function as a prequel to their original film.  Romero will also be penning a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD comic for Avatar this year.  Woe is to the unlucky fan that had the tactlessness of broaching the subject of the new 3D LIVING DEAD to Russo.  His reply was curt and succinct to say the very least, and his expression faded from amusement quickly to anger.

“Why the hell would I want to talk about that?," Russo says. "I had nothing to do with that movie, and it’s just another rip-off of what we did.  I want to tell these guys to go out and get their own Goddamn ideas for once instead of always stealing from us.”

Clare Kramer, from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER was an actor in another panel, this time for her new movie THE GRAVEDANCERS.  The film which is directed by Mike Mendez, is a good old fashioned ghost story that was inspired by two things, what happens to people who really “dance on someone’s grave” and also by Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion where ghosts “may try to follow you home.” 

   

Photos (C) 2006 Will Brattain

The WEEKEND OF HORRORS dealer room

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 The dealer room consisted of all manner of booths where one could buy rare posters, or acquire autographs from horror talent from the past such as the gracious and beautiful Adrienne Barbeau.  Barbeau was on hand on Friday only, signing autographs from any of the films that comprise her huge body of work, and chatting with fans. She had just returned from New York and her successful run of THE PROPERTY KNOWN AS GARLAND, a play about the life of singer Judy Garland. Barbeau told iF, “ The play was a great success. We ran for three months, and that was all we were slated for.  We were a limited engagement to see how the play would work for a New York audience.” 

One of the more interesting and unique items up for sale in the dealer room was in the Full Moon Entertainment booth.  The PUPPET MASTER DVD boxed set, which was released in a limited edition run years ago, quickly has become a rare item on the collector’s market and is currently fetching up to 300.00 on both eBay and Amazon.com.  This is the only way for fans to get all seven of the original PUPPET MASTER movies, and a bonus disc of 45 minutes worth of Full Moon Trailers.  According to Charles Band, the man behind Full Moon, they were cleaning out a storage facility and stumbled across a cache of the rare boxed sets, and decided to offer them to fans at the convention for a low price of $80.00.  

The SCI FI Channel indie hit ABOMINABLE had a panel with director Ryan Schifrin, composer Lalo Schifrin, and members of the cast.  Schifrin and his lovely wife Theresa are currently shopping film festivals to premiere the creature feature at.  The biggest and most exciting announcement for the film came at the end of their panel, when Anchor Bay announced that they would have exclusive distributing rights to the film on DVD.

Friday night also saw an exclusive gold pass only cocktail and desert party that iF was lucky enough to be invited to where fans could drink, eat and be merry with actors like Richard Moll and Lance Henriksen.  Moll stayed at his table and greeted fans, but Henriksen was up and about moving from table to table, taking pictures and singing autographs for fans.  The whole event had a backdrop of an illusionist and a German magician who was as one fan put it “walking the line between absurdity and genius”.  The magician could hardly be understood, but what he lacked in pronunciation he made up with in enthusiasm, and ended his act with swallowing a sword.

There were several other notable panels for upcoming horror films; in fact that was one of the best things about this convention.  Audience members were given first looks into independent and big studio pictures alike that will be heading to theaters and DVD this year.  Fans were treated to a clip of Jason Connery pulling the fangs off of horror legend Ken Foree in BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD, which is yet another movie featuring Sid Haig (is it just me or is he everywhere these days?). HATCHET gave fans a look at Kane Hodder (JASON X) in his newest serial killer slasher movie which coincidentally also stars BUFFY alum Mercedes McNab. 

Photo (C) 2006 Sue Schneider

HATCHET'S Mercedes McNab

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Perhaps the biggest panel of the convention (well at least on the final day) was the PAN’S LABYRINTH discussion with director Guillermo Del Toro and star Doug Jones.  A five-minute clip was played of the film, which is incidentally in Spanish with English subtitles, and the movie looks stunning! The atmosphere of the film is organic and terrifying and smacks of old Grimm’s fairy tales, the ones that never really had the “Disney happy endings.”  Jones plays both the title character of Pan, and a monster in the maze called the Pale Man who eats children and has his eyes in his hands.  The film will open around October or November according to Del Toro, and deals with Fascist Spain of 1944, and a girl who discovers she is the Princess of a magical kingdom existing with in our reality.  Del Toro views the times we live in to be similar to that period in Spain’s history, so he hopes the film will resonate with audiences.  The director entreated the audience to keep fantasy alive.

 

Photo (C) 2006 Sue Schneider

PAN'S LABYRINTH director Guillermo Del Toro and star Doug Jones

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Doug Jones became part of the film through email, and had to memorize his lines in Spanish even when he didn’t speak a word of the language before hand. 

“The project was introduced to me in an email," says Jones. "Guillermo told me no one could play Pan but me, and that he also wanted me to play the Pale Man.  Then he said what do you think? He always gives me about a day to think about it.” Continued Jones. “ I memorized my lines in Spanish and would practice them on the make-up crew every morning.  They told me my accent was interesting.”

At which point in the panel Del Toro interrupted and translated what had been meant by interesting, “It sounded like you were on drugs.”

Jones who has been in several productions of Del Toro’s now feels like a favorite pet, “I’m his favorite fish," he adds. "I’m his favorite goat.  I feel like the dog who gets to sleep on the bed.”

Del Toro also answered fan’s questions about his upcoming project HELLBOY 2.

“We’re moving studios right now," says Del Toro. "They don’t have a deal with Sony any more and we are looking for financing for HELLBOY 2.  It’s at Paramount right now.  It’s bigger in scale, but not necessarily in budget.  Abe Sapien has a much bigger part, and we’re keeping closer to the mythology of the comics.“ Del Toro giggled with glee as he revealed a singer whose music would be part of the film. “There is a song by Barry Manilow, and you’ll have to find out about how that fits in. I know you are all saying ‘what the f**k is that?!’“

Of course Bruce Campbell had a panel, and there were several other panels that were fantastic, but they just become too numerous to list.  There were screenings of episodes of NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES, and of CEMETARY MAN and NIGHTWATCH.  

The convention was a blast for horror fans of all sizes, shapes, colors, and ages. iF MAGAZINE was in the thick of most of the panels, and set up exclusive interviews with several of the celebrity stars on hand so be sure to check back for the complete run-downs of those sessions.

The choicest comment of the whole weekend went to director Guillermo Del Toro, who seemed to have the most interesting and off color things to say during his time on stage.  He was asked about why he wasn’t involved with MASTERS OF HORROR, and although he would love to be, he says he was intimidated by the title of the show.  To him it was akin to dating:

“Calling the show MASTERS OF HORROR is like going on a date and saying ‘this is the amazing twelve inch d**k!’ “ 

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Reader Comments

richard and anna mirissis from staten island sez....
WE LOVE YOUR CONVENTIONS. WHEN IN JUNE IS YOUR NEXT SHOW IN SECAUCUS? WERE DO WE GET TICKETS AND WHAT ARE LEVELS OF PRICES FOR THEM?COULD YOU SEND US COMPLETE INFO? THANK YOU.
5/14/2008 6:49:24 AM

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