The weekend featured several celebrity guests, tons of vendors selling t-shirts, posters and other collectibles, and previews and some screenings of soon-to-be-released horror films. Most of the action took place upstairs in the Main Auditorium Grand Ballroom. There were also a few rooms in the basement of the hotel with additional vendors and an additional screening room.

I was present for Saturday, February 24. I first took in all of the goods being offered. I wanted them all. Unfortunately, I knew I had to limit myself to only one or two items. But I couldn’t decide right away.

So the next thing I did was to head to the preview/celebrity speaker area. There I saw various previews of upcoming films. An hour’s worth of previews was shown with commentary about each given from a moderator of the events in that room. The previews included several independent films and also major releases such as Hostel II, The Hills Have Eyes II and Grindhouse, the double feature from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. It was an hour well-spent.

After that, I headed down to the other screening room. There, several shorts and independent films were being screened. I saw the end of the shorts sponsored by Fangoria and then one 34-minute short called Cannibal Flesh Riot! I was expecting an ultra-violent feeding frenzy. What I got instead was actually a comedy. The film was in black and white, the violent parts were in stop-motion animation and the two main characters were ghouls who spent the film discussing the finer points of food and condiments. I loved it. The creator, Gris Grimly, was there to introduce it. You can check it out here.

The screenings in this additional room were structured with the first two hours being a variety of short films. The remaining six or so hours were feature films, until the last film, which was a short. There were three features in total: Dead Mary, Shutter and Turistas. Dead Mary features Dominique Swain as a lady demon. Shutter is a film from Thailand about a camera that captures the dead. Turistas is the film that was out last year about a group of vacationing young folk who meet with dire circumstances. The last screening, titled Angel of Revenge, is a short film that was shot at last year’s Chicago Fangoria Weekend of Horrors.

Unfortunately, due to other events and uncomfortable seating, I opted not to experience any of the feature films. I had intended to watch Angel of Revenge. I really would have loved to see what it was, particularly because it had been shot at the previous year’s WOH. But the weather turned bad quickly and an early departure was necessary.

I spent most of the rest of the day in the previews/celebrity speaker room. I had missed appearances from Zack Ward (Freddy vs. Jason, Transformers), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead, the new Halloween), Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects, Grindhouse) and Marcus Nispel (director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and Pathfinder). The first celebrity appearance I did catch was the appearance of David Arquette (Scream trilogy) and Jason Mewes (Clerks, Feast), both there to promote The Tripper as director and actor respectively. They spoke in response to prompts from the moderator and Q & A from the audience. They were a lot of fun to listen to.

I skipped an appearance by Robert Kurtzman, make-up effects artist turned director promoting two new directorial ventures, Buried Alive and The Rage. Instead, I took that time to select the merchandise I would be claiming for my own. I had to choose from several movie posters, autographed pictures, screenplays, DVDs, t-shirts, collectible figures and even name badges including S-mart Housewares manager (Army of Darkness) and Foree Electric Employee (Shaun of the Dead). After much deliberation, I decided upon a t-shirt depicting Romero’s 1968 classic Night of The Living Dead.

I took my purchase and headed back to the previews/celebrity speaker room. I finished the day experiencing appearances by Gary Sherman (director of Raw Meat, Dead & Buried and 39: A Film by Carroll McKane), The Fangoria Entertainment Panel (including Fangoria Radio’s Dee Snider and Debbie Rochon), Lloyd Kaufman (Troma’s leading mad man) and Shawnee Smith (most notably Amanda from the Saw franchise).

I am a huge Dee Snider fan, not only because of his love of horror but also as I am a fan of Twisted Sister. So it was very cool to be in the same room with him. But the highlight of the convention had to be The Troma Team. There to promote the film Poultrygeist, the Troma Team brought their twisted sense of humor to an appreciative crowd.

Poultrygeist centers on a fast food establishment built on a Native American burial ground. The spirits of the slain Native Americans and the slain chickens join together to wreak havoc on the restaurant and its patrons. One of the team was dressed as a chicken. A preview of the film was shown. It wasn’t a trailer, as the other previews were, but an excerpt of about ten minutes of the movie. The low-budget camp gore that is the trademark of Troma films is present in all its darkly comedic glory. Lloyd Kaufman set the screening up with several bad puns (This will be Egg-cellent; I hope nothing goes Fowl; I guess we’ll just Wing it; I’ll send you The Bill). It was a fun way to get the audience a-breast of the movie.

There was also a screening of a trailer for The Toxic Avenger in Iraq. Toxie was present, along with several Tromettes (scantily clad female members of The Troma Team). Troma definitely brought down the proverbial house.

Sadly, Shawnee Smith came nowhere near matching the high energy of The Troma Team. She often took minutes to respond to Q & A, often just staring silently into space. And when she did reply, parlay was every other word out of her mouth (…and that parlayed into that and then I parlayed that into that… She keeps using that word. I do not think it means what she thinks it means).

The appearance of documentarian Michael Feisher was to be accompanied by debut footage of George Romero’s Diary of the Dead. I would really have loved to see that, as I love documentaries and zombies, especially Romero’s, and am currently reading The Book of the Dead which chronicles the history of the zombie in film. Sadly, he was unable to attend due to the weather conditions.

So the day ended with a few more previews, including an encore of Grindhouse. There was a celebrity dessert party to follow, but due to the darn weather, I had to go.
Overall, the convention is a great time. It would be nice to have a better screening room for the features – the current one is cramped with a small projection screen and free-standing chairs. But the merchandise and celebrities offered are awesome.

I plan to go again next year, but I think I’ll head to California or New Jersey. At least there, due to the year-round climate of the former and the later timing of the latter, I shouldn’t have to worry about having to cut my festivities short due to crappy weather.