It’s been eight years since I last went to a horror convention, but I still consider myself a horror geek of sorts. I can still throw down when it comes to Italian horror absurdities and still enjoy a crappy 70s zombie film or braindead 80s slasher with the best of them. But, there was something missing… a hole in my heart that needed to be filled.
I needed to meet George Romero.
So, a few months ago when I saw that not only was Romero going to be at the HorrorFind Weekend in Adelphi, MD, but that the conference was going to be a reunion, gathering actors from all of Romero’s Living Dead movies, I marked it in the calendar and resolved to go, come hell or water that’s above knee level.
I’d heard that others had waited in line for hours at other conventions for Romero’s autograph, so I was surprised when I was sixth in line on Sunday morning, having arrived only a few minutes before the doors were scheduled to open. Unfortunately, the Godfather of the Zombie Film decided to sleep in a bit, so the wait ended up being about 40 minutes. Not too bad.
One thing I noticed while waiting in line is that there may not be a sadder individual than the horror collector (except maybe the sci-fi collector… I dunno). During the wait for Romero, I listened to one guy regale a handful of nearby strangers about all the people he’d met, the autographs he’d collected, how he has the Fright Night 2 DVD still shrinkwrapped and HEY did you know it sells for $200?, and how he’s got thousands of DVDs and wow–what a coincidence–he had a whole series of photos still on his camera wannasee’em? Not to mention how when he got Hulk Hogan’s autograph[1], the Hulkster had unknowingly cut his finger and bled on this guy’s paper. “Hah,” the guy laughed, “if I get a hair sample I could clone him!”
I’m pretty sure he was joking.
Eventually, the stories came to a close and the line got moving. After years of waiting, I finally got my face time with a slightly-under-the-weather George Romero (he gave me a courtesy laugh when I asked if we’d come back from the dead if we caught his cold). I got one autograph, a photo with him (thanks, person in line behind me!), and I got him to record a message on video for Rasine that I’ll play for her before we watch Night of the Living Dead together for the first time. It was awesome. He was very friendly and patient with the fans and I didn’t regret dropping $25 for his autograph. Which brings me to the biggest difference between this conference and the last one I went to…
Eight years ago at Cult-Con 2000 (see also), there was a nice line-up of stars there, ranging from Ruggero Deodato (one of his only American convention appearances) to David Hess to Antonella Fulci (recognize the head in the last photo?) to Claudio Simonetti. And all but a couple of them (Gunnar Hansen, I think) signed autographs for free, plus they’d sign whatever you brought them. The convention celebrity room has changed an awful lot since then. At HorrorFind, pretty much everyone charged $20 for each item you wanted signed, or you could buy a photo for $20 that they’d sign. This is kind of a bummer because it gets expensive really quickly and younger fans that are building up their collections have to make some hard decisions about who gets their money.
On the other hand, it is kind of nice to see these actors able to supplement their income for work that they did many years ago. They do deserve to make money… I just wish it didn’t have to be at $20 a pop.
I had hoped to come away with a stack of signatures covering all of the Living Dead films, but I ended up focusing my time (and money) on folks from Dawn of the Dead, the movie that kick-started my love of horror. A quick list with some impressions that most of you will skip right past (if you’ve made it this far):
- Ken Foree – Didn’t want to sign next to Gaylen Ross’s signature, so he signed the front of my DVD instead. Whatever’s clever — friendly guy. Got a great shot with him that makes me look about two feet tall.
- Gaylen Ross – Nice and took the time to talk about the movie a bit.
- David Emge – Laughed when I told him I’d taken a photo of the elevator he hobbled out of as a zombie in Dawn of the Dead.
- Scott Reiniger – Had a tough time hunting him down near the end of the show, but again, nice guy.
- Mike Christopher – Super nice guy (he was the Hare Krishna zombie). I picked up an action figure of him to sign. Who could resist? It’ll be the perfect item to pass onto Rasine when she’s… four or five.
- Leonard Lies – One of the few guys charging only $10 for a signature. Lies was the zombie who caught a machete to his head in the movie. I talked with him for about five minutes. He told me he grew up as a fan of Night of the Living Dead and was excited about getting a small role in the sequel. When he went to drop off his resume, he said, “I saw a man wearing a scarf and asked him if he could give my resume to George Romero.” Of course, the man in the scarf was George Romero. He also dropped an interesting fact I didn’t know: his zombie was originally supposed to be played by John Amplas (the lead in Romero’s Martin).
- David Crawford – In only his second convention appearance ever, Crawford was probably the most humble and gentle. He was soft-spoken and really liked my Zombie Escape Plan notepad (courtesy of Huyen). I enjoyed talking with him and have already exchanged a post-conference e-mail with him.
The one other autograph I got was John Russo from Night of the Living Dead. I’ll refrain from any comments because it’s not really right to pass judgment on someone after only a few seconds talking to him. And it was only a few seconds. I’d say that I paid a rate of $3,600/hour for my joyless 20 second interaction. Did I say I was going to refrain from making comments?
One thing that kept coming up throughout the day was how lightly attended the convention was. Often times, you’ll see lines forming around the building just to get in, but on Sunday I was able to walk up to everybody and get an autograph and photo without waiting. Good for me, but many actors ended up leaving a couple hours early because traffic around their tables were so slow. I also heard one convention worker on the phone discussing how she was concerned about the low turnout and how there might not be a follow-up in August, as originally planned.
The dealer room was OK. A few indie horror films, a bunch of (mostly legit) DVD vendors, and some artists. I felt oddly uncompelled to buy anything. There was also a silent auction, where I just missed winning a set of board games.
So, all in all a good experience. Nothing mind blowing and though there were a few scattered seminars, movie showings, and book readings, I pretty much limited myself to the celebrities and dealers. I’d like to go to something huge like Cinema Wasteland sometime in the future to get that “big convention” vibe.
(Edited to add): I fully realize that this entry is pretty much the exact same thing the “sad” person early in the post did. I’m well aware what that makes me as well. Woo-hoo!
[1] It should be noted that there is a strong correlation between someone being a horror fan and that same someone being a wrestling fan.
