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Horror Hound Con Report!
14 years ago
Okay folks, here it is - I'm home from Horror Hound and writing up the ol' con report! Now, first off. I already subjected the folks on my writing list to the reviews of the films I caught. And I'm going to subject the folks I live with to the same. So if you *want* to hear my lengthier discussions of Absentia and Frankenstein Syndrome, ask for them, but otherwise I'm not going to recap them here except to cover them in bullet point form.
Absentia: Good, atmospheric film. Has a good 'family drama' or 'very special episode of' feel to it at first, with some added creepiness - and when things get better, they rapidly get *much* creepier at the very same time. Strong recommend, and the website is here! http://absentiamovie.com/
Frankenstein Syndrome: Painfully preachy take on the Frankenstein story (and that's compared to the original!) I probably wouldn't mind it so much if they hadn't painted the entire field of embryonic stem cell research with a very broad, very undeserved brush. If you're interested in the link though... here it is. https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-.....53367781371272 Maybe you'll like it better than I did. I *will* say that, due to malfunctions at the screening, it may have left a worse impression than it deserved, and I'll probably try to catch the DVD from Netflix to give it more of a fair review. If you just watch it as a horror film without looking at its portrayal of folks in the medical research field, you might like it. It *does* get rave reviews, but I just found it increasingly painful and silly.
Tucker & Dale vs The Evil. Sadly, can't say much about this one because my knee forced me to 'chicken out' before seeing it. But oh, do I ever want to see this one when it hits on DVD. It's Reverse Massacre - a group of college kids come across Tucker & Dale at their favorite fishing hole up in the mountains, and decide that the two hillbillies are rejects from Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Wrong Turn/Deliverance, who need to be taken out before they can turn them into down home cooking. Tucker & Dale proceed to defend themselves. http://www.tuckeranddale.com/ I really think that T&D could have dethroned Absentia as my best film of the con, but we'll have to see when it comes out more widely.
Now, for my con report proper... the short version is that I attended, and I became one of the best customers of the booth in the back corner of the "separate but equal" dealer's room that was selling DVD's of obscure films. Even got some holiday shopping cleared out of the way, which is always a nice bonus.
I left for Indianapolis a bit after 9:00 on Thursday morning, having gotten the whole day off due to a slight miscommunication with my boss. Arrived in Indy about 4:30 local time, after a 6-ish hour drive (Indy is Eastern time, WI is Central). I got to settle in and recover from the drive, and had plenty of time on Friday to relax prior to the convention proper. As for the convention proper... well, here's some free advice to the folks running Horror Hound, or *any* convention. If people sign up and pre-register for your convention, they're doing it for *their* convenience as much as, if not more than, yours. They're doing it because they don't want to wait in line for hours. This is even more the case when they pay extra for the privilege of entering the convention area an hour before anybody else!
They do this because, when the tickets they receive say "admittance at 4:00 for early admission," they expect to show up at, say, 3:45, maybe wait briefly in a line of other people who bought early admission tickets, and go inside. They don't expect to be sent to the back of the hour-long line that all the people who pre-registered for standard admission - and the people who didn't pre-register - are waiting in. And I wasn't the only person bitching about this during the wait.
So I showed up a little bit early, as mentioned. Found a parking spot that was miraculously not a huge hike from the hotel, and went inside, carrying the walking stick I brought along because my knee's screwed up and I don't handle standing/walking for long periods of time well. I ask the nice man in the 'con staff' t-shirt if the line that I see *doubled back around two hallways and back into the lobby* is the early admission line, somewhat surprised that so many people would have purchased the early admission. He looks at me quizzically, and says "are you getting a gold membership?"
"No, but I did pre-pay for the early admission tickets; I've got them right here."
"Yeah, you're in this line."
All of this stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And, admittedly, *maybe* it is in the horror convention world. Maybe it is in the comic convention world. I honestly don't know. What I *do* know is that this isn't normal at the conventions that I am familiar with - mostly furry conventions. Now, in my experience, furs are renowned for having the organizational skills of ferrets on methamphetamines. But when you've got a furry convention, the folks running them are usually those with at least a modicum of improved organizational ability. They need it, in order to *set up a convention* and get the minor celebrities of the furry fandom into the con and set up. They also know that, frankly, people who are pre-registering for the con want to get into the con faster than those who show up unannounced. So at a furcon, there will be one of two things: A pre-reg line, where you show up, show your ID, they have you on the list, and they hand you your badge, any swag you have coming, and send you happily on your way. Alternately, they send you your badge in advance, and you can cut the line to pick up your swag, if any, or they've even got the swag set up elsewhere so you can pick it up when-the-heck ever.
In short, they give you a good reason to pay early. They *want* you to pre-reg, so they set this line up to give you an added incentive to do so. And Horror Hound did too... if you signed up for the package that cost almost three times what the base package did. Now, I understand that the gold membership also came with a lot of swag, perks, and guaranteed seating in the front two rows of any screenings you attend. But when I pay extra for early admission, only to be told I'm spending my extra hour in line and actually getting my registration after not just the people who only paid for a regular ticket, but after the people who didn't pre-register *at all*... yeah, that ticks me off. As evidenced by my spending so much time bitching about it! All of which could have been avoided by *including the wristband with the damn tickets they mailed me*. I mentioned this to somebody on staff, and he sort of looked around, shrugged, and said "I don't think they knew what colors the wristbands were going to be until today."
Which doesn't actually surprise me, honestly, because they also didn't have maps of the convention, or a con programming guide - they literally put up what films would be screened and where *the day the convention was going to start* on their website. Of course, they had their list of celeb's up months in advance - which tells me exactly what they think about at this con. The celebs they can get in will bring people in the door, so that's what's important. Nothing else really matters to our attendees, right? Well, in my case, wrong. The celebs are the last thing I'm interested in, since I'm not an autograph hound. Now, I'd like to *talk* to some of the celebs, but that's not going to happen at these events. I'd *love* to sit down at a bar and chat with Tom Atkins about his films, me with my ginger ale and him with whatever particular beer or mixed drink he favors. Hell, I'd probably even cover a couple rounds for the privilege, just to hear him reminisce. But I'm not gonna shell out $20 to talk with him for a couple minutes and get his signature on a poster or DVD cover. And that goes double for Corey Feldman (who, frankly, probably wouldn't get the offer of a beer either.)
At any rate, I collected my wristband (finally), and went in to do some shopping. Here was where the lack of a map came back to bite me - I actually accidentally found my way into Mask Fest, which was where they had people showing off their latex mask skills (sorry, no pictures - wasn't sure if they'd appreciate that or not, and I forgot my camera the first night anyway). Mask Fest was *also* the "they don't have an A-list celebrity with them, so we're going to put them over *here*" dealer's tables. Ironically, I didn't even *find* the main dealer's area that first night, though I *was* thinking "gee, there aren't that many dealers here." In the end, I ended up doing all my business at one table, the folks selling the super-obscure films. Though I did get a chance to meet Robert Kurtzmann and say that I, at least, enjoyed The Rage (warning: Seriously a 'it is what it is' film, don't watch it if you're not ready for super-cheesiness.)
I also found the room where they were keeping the podcasters and the horror hosts, though I didn't spend too much time in there.
Anywho, after my initial shopping, I headed back to the hotel to get dinner and rest up. As an aside, the Red Roof Inn on Valparaiso Court is small, but the rooms are reasonably well kept. I *would* recommend trying to get a ground floor room if you have more than one bag though. Hauling my desktop up the stairs was *not* fun, nor hauling it down this morning. However, I found that Chang Fu (the Chinese takeout place next door) was pretty good, and it became a mainstay of my diet while I was there. Good eggrolls, great fried dumplings, and they cook up everything fast.
Spent a lot of time chatting with folks and working on my own projects, but it was a good chance to do just that without having to worry about everything else going on around me.
Saturday, I went in mostly to watch the screenings. I *was* able to take advantage of my early admission ticket on Saturday, which let me do some follow-up shopping (and find the main dealer's room) prior to the screening of Absentia. Didn't buy anything in the main dealer's room, but I did get a few pictures today, as I promised some folks I would! You see, on one of the lists, I mentioned that I'd try to get pics of cute cosplayers, and I did my best to remain true to my word! It was a little tricky though, because there actually weren't as many cosplayers here as I'd expected after Famous Monsters. Still, I did my best. First, I found a couple of guys who looked like they knew a thing or two about finding people. Heck, the guy on the left has been finding cute chicks in the middle of the freakin' *woods* for over thirty years now, so if anybody could help me, I knew it was him!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481849/
Well, after a couple minor misunderstandings involving asking for help hunting up some cute cosplayers, they agreed to help me find one with some great melons. Which led to my meeting the lovely lady below!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481875/
I didn't have the heart to tell them that, technically, pumpkins are squash, not melons.
Well, okay, I had the heart, just not the nerve. Not sure why the picture came out so blurry - maybe it's a supernatural creature thing.
At any rate, after this I had to go catch the screening of Absentia. My 'review' is mentioned above, but in short, I loved it. Frankenstein Syndrome was right afterwards, so I caught what I did of that too... didn't love it so much. There *was* some audience heckling when the disk started skipping, but for once I wasn't involved in it. Best part of the screening before I left through.
At any rate, having exhausted my attempts to find *cute* cosplayers, I instead settled for finding the most horrifying monsters I could! And boy, did I *ever* succeed!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481916/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481929/
Bask in the horror of fursuiters! Bwahahahahahaha! Seriously, these guys were all there, having fun, and I give them credit for having the cojones to come out to a horror convention - where absolutely everybody just loved them. There was a lot of gawking, but it wasn't horrified. Rather, it was folks who were all clearly amused/interested in the unusual costumers, and getting just as many pictures as I was. Hell, it was hard for me to get a group shot, with everybody draping themselves off the Panda and Wolf! I'm trying to figure out who exactly they were, but in the meantime I dub them the *true* Horror Hounds (and Bear!)
Anywho, it was about another 3 hours until the screening of Tucker & Dale at this point, but my leg was screaming at me, so I had to head back to the hotel and get some lunch. By this point I'd done a little more shopping too, so my goals for the con - watch any interesting films, and buy a bunch of stuff - were met. Spent the rest of the day, and Sunday, resting up, watching some of my purchases, and prepping for my trip home today. This morning, I packed up, drove home, and here I am!
So, there's the general gist of my weekend - hopefully, this'll keep me from having to repost it to a dozen different people. ;)
Absentia: Good, atmospheric film. Has a good 'family drama' or 'very special episode of' feel to it at first, with some added creepiness - and when things get better, they rapidly get *much* creepier at the very same time. Strong recommend, and the website is here! http://absentiamovie.com/
Frankenstein Syndrome: Painfully preachy take on the Frankenstein story (and that's compared to the original!) I probably wouldn't mind it so much if they hadn't painted the entire field of embryonic stem cell research with a very broad, very undeserved brush. If you're interested in the link though... here it is. https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-.....53367781371272 Maybe you'll like it better than I did. I *will* say that, due to malfunctions at the screening, it may have left a worse impression than it deserved, and I'll probably try to catch the DVD from Netflix to give it more of a fair review. If you just watch it as a horror film without looking at its portrayal of folks in the medical research field, you might like it. It *does* get rave reviews, but I just found it increasingly painful and silly.
Tucker & Dale vs The Evil. Sadly, can't say much about this one because my knee forced me to 'chicken out' before seeing it. But oh, do I ever want to see this one when it hits on DVD. It's Reverse Massacre - a group of college kids come across Tucker & Dale at their favorite fishing hole up in the mountains, and decide that the two hillbillies are rejects from Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Wrong Turn/Deliverance, who need to be taken out before they can turn them into down home cooking. Tucker & Dale proceed to defend themselves. http://www.tuckeranddale.com/ I really think that T&D could have dethroned Absentia as my best film of the con, but we'll have to see when it comes out more widely.
Now, for my con report proper... the short version is that I attended, and I became one of the best customers of the booth in the back corner of the "separate but equal" dealer's room that was selling DVD's of obscure films. Even got some holiday shopping cleared out of the way, which is always a nice bonus.
I left for Indianapolis a bit after 9:00 on Thursday morning, having gotten the whole day off due to a slight miscommunication with my boss. Arrived in Indy about 4:30 local time, after a 6-ish hour drive (Indy is Eastern time, WI is Central). I got to settle in and recover from the drive, and had plenty of time on Friday to relax prior to the convention proper. As for the convention proper... well, here's some free advice to the folks running Horror Hound, or *any* convention. If people sign up and pre-register for your convention, they're doing it for *their* convenience as much as, if not more than, yours. They're doing it because they don't want to wait in line for hours. This is even more the case when they pay extra for the privilege of entering the convention area an hour before anybody else!
They do this because, when the tickets they receive say "admittance at 4:00 for early admission," they expect to show up at, say, 3:45, maybe wait briefly in a line of other people who bought early admission tickets, and go inside. They don't expect to be sent to the back of the hour-long line that all the people who pre-registered for standard admission - and the people who didn't pre-register - are waiting in. And I wasn't the only person bitching about this during the wait.
So I showed up a little bit early, as mentioned. Found a parking spot that was miraculously not a huge hike from the hotel, and went inside, carrying the walking stick I brought along because my knee's screwed up and I don't handle standing/walking for long periods of time well. I ask the nice man in the 'con staff' t-shirt if the line that I see *doubled back around two hallways and back into the lobby* is the early admission line, somewhat surprised that so many people would have purchased the early admission. He looks at me quizzically, and says "are you getting a gold membership?"
"No, but I did pre-pay for the early admission tickets; I've got them right here."
"Yeah, you're in this line."
All of this stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And, admittedly, *maybe* it is in the horror convention world. Maybe it is in the comic convention world. I honestly don't know. What I *do* know is that this isn't normal at the conventions that I am familiar with - mostly furry conventions. Now, in my experience, furs are renowned for having the organizational skills of ferrets on methamphetamines. But when you've got a furry convention, the folks running them are usually those with at least a modicum of improved organizational ability. They need it, in order to *set up a convention* and get the minor celebrities of the furry fandom into the con and set up. They also know that, frankly, people who are pre-registering for the con want to get into the con faster than those who show up unannounced. So at a furcon, there will be one of two things: A pre-reg line, where you show up, show your ID, they have you on the list, and they hand you your badge, any swag you have coming, and send you happily on your way. Alternately, they send you your badge in advance, and you can cut the line to pick up your swag, if any, or they've even got the swag set up elsewhere so you can pick it up when-the-heck ever.
In short, they give you a good reason to pay early. They *want* you to pre-reg, so they set this line up to give you an added incentive to do so. And Horror Hound did too... if you signed up for the package that cost almost three times what the base package did. Now, I understand that the gold membership also came with a lot of swag, perks, and guaranteed seating in the front two rows of any screenings you attend. But when I pay extra for early admission, only to be told I'm spending my extra hour in line and actually getting my registration after not just the people who only paid for a regular ticket, but after the people who didn't pre-register *at all*... yeah, that ticks me off. As evidenced by my spending so much time bitching about it! All of which could have been avoided by *including the wristband with the damn tickets they mailed me*. I mentioned this to somebody on staff, and he sort of looked around, shrugged, and said "I don't think they knew what colors the wristbands were going to be until today."
Which doesn't actually surprise me, honestly, because they also didn't have maps of the convention, or a con programming guide - they literally put up what films would be screened and where *the day the convention was going to start* on their website. Of course, they had their list of celeb's up months in advance - which tells me exactly what they think about at this con. The celebs they can get in will bring people in the door, so that's what's important. Nothing else really matters to our attendees, right? Well, in my case, wrong. The celebs are the last thing I'm interested in, since I'm not an autograph hound. Now, I'd like to *talk* to some of the celebs, but that's not going to happen at these events. I'd *love* to sit down at a bar and chat with Tom Atkins about his films, me with my ginger ale and him with whatever particular beer or mixed drink he favors. Hell, I'd probably even cover a couple rounds for the privilege, just to hear him reminisce. But I'm not gonna shell out $20 to talk with him for a couple minutes and get his signature on a poster or DVD cover. And that goes double for Corey Feldman (who, frankly, probably wouldn't get the offer of a beer either.)
At any rate, I collected my wristband (finally), and went in to do some shopping. Here was where the lack of a map came back to bite me - I actually accidentally found my way into Mask Fest, which was where they had people showing off their latex mask skills (sorry, no pictures - wasn't sure if they'd appreciate that or not, and I forgot my camera the first night anyway). Mask Fest was *also* the "they don't have an A-list celebrity with them, so we're going to put them over *here*" dealer's tables. Ironically, I didn't even *find* the main dealer's area that first night, though I *was* thinking "gee, there aren't that many dealers here." In the end, I ended up doing all my business at one table, the folks selling the super-obscure films. Though I did get a chance to meet Robert Kurtzmann and say that I, at least, enjoyed The Rage (warning: Seriously a 'it is what it is' film, don't watch it if you're not ready for super-cheesiness.)
I also found the room where they were keeping the podcasters and the horror hosts, though I didn't spend too much time in there.
Anywho, after my initial shopping, I headed back to the hotel to get dinner and rest up. As an aside, the Red Roof Inn on Valparaiso Court is small, but the rooms are reasonably well kept. I *would* recommend trying to get a ground floor room if you have more than one bag though. Hauling my desktop up the stairs was *not* fun, nor hauling it down this morning. However, I found that Chang Fu (the Chinese takeout place next door) was pretty good, and it became a mainstay of my diet while I was there. Good eggrolls, great fried dumplings, and they cook up everything fast.
Spent a lot of time chatting with folks and working on my own projects, but it was a good chance to do just that without having to worry about everything else going on around me.
Saturday, I went in mostly to watch the screenings. I *was* able to take advantage of my early admission ticket on Saturday, which let me do some follow-up shopping (and find the main dealer's room) prior to the screening of Absentia. Didn't buy anything in the main dealer's room, but I did get a few pictures today, as I promised some folks I would! You see, on one of the lists, I mentioned that I'd try to get pics of cute cosplayers, and I did my best to remain true to my word! It was a little tricky though, because there actually weren't as many cosplayers here as I'd expected after Famous Monsters. Still, I did my best. First, I found a couple of guys who looked like they knew a thing or two about finding people. Heck, the guy on the left has been finding cute chicks in the middle of the freakin' *woods* for over thirty years now, so if anybody could help me, I knew it was him!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481849/
Well, after a couple minor misunderstandings involving asking for help hunting up some cute cosplayers, they agreed to help me find one with some great melons. Which led to my meeting the lovely lady below!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481875/
I didn't have the heart to tell them that, technically, pumpkins are squash, not melons.
Well, okay, I had the heart, just not the nerve. Not sure why the picture came out so blurry - maybe it's a supernatural creature thing.
At any rate, after this I had to go catch the screening of Absentia. My 'review' is mentioned above, but in short, I loved it. Frankenstein Syndrome was right afterwards, so I caught what I did of that too... didn't love it so much. There *was* some audience heckling when the disk started skipping, but for once I wasn't involved in it. Best part of the screening before I left through.
At any rate, having exhausted my attempts to find *cute* cosplayers, I instead settled for finding the most horrifying monsters I could! And boy, did I *ever* succeed!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481916/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5481929/
Bask in the horror of fursuiters! Bwahahahahahaha! Seriously, these guys were all there, having fun, and I give them credit for having the cojones to come out to a horror convention - where absolutely everybody just loved them. There was a lot of gawking, but it wasn't horrified. Rather, it was folks who were all clearly amused/interested in the unusual costumers, and getting just as many pictures as I was. Hell, it was hard for me to get a group shot, with everybody draping themselves off the Panda and Wolf! I'm trying to figure out who exactly they were, but in the meantime I dub them the *true* Horror Hounds (and Bear!)
Anywho, it was about another 3 hours until the screening of Tucker & Dale at this point, but my leg was screaming at me, so I had to head back to the hotel and get some lunch. By this point I'd done a little more shopping too, so my goals for the con - watch any interesting films, and buy a bunch of stuff - were met. Spent the rest of the day, and Sunday, resting up, watching some of my purchases, and prepping for my trip home today. This morning, I packed up, drove home, and here I am!
So, there's the general gist of my weekend - hopefully, this'll keep me from having to repost it to a dozen different people. ;)
