Stratovania

Saturday (well, the whole weekend actually, but we only went on Saturday) was the twenty-fifth Monster-Mania Convention. I'm not even sure how they're counting these anymore, but I know bethje and I have been to all of the ones in Cherry Hill but one. Guests this time included Christopher Lloyd and Carrie Fisher, who aren't really horror-related, but were still fun to see. When my dad first got a VCR, two of very few movies that we had were the original Star Wars and Back to the Future, so I've seen both plenty of times. Danny Glover, Malcolm McDowell, and Terry Kiser, the guy who played Bernie in Weekend at Bernie's, also did question-and-answer panels. And George Romero revealed once again that he's a total hippie. I'm still not sure why zombie speed is an issue that comes up so frequently, but I've never been big on zombies anyway. I noticed the Angry Video Game Nerd in the audience (I think he asked Lloyd a question about Roger Rabbit), and at another point I was a few seats over from someone in a Mystique costume. She was there with her son, but while he was also in a costume, it was not Nightcrawler. I always used to dress up for Oz conventions, but I haven't been to one of them in years, and I don't think a horror convention audience would recognize somewhat obscure Oz characters anyway.

After the convention, I found out that two of the lugnuts on one of my car wheels had come off, and I still don't know how. If someone had taken them off, I suspect they would have gone ahead and taken the whole thing, no? If they fell off, I suspect it was due to the dealer not putting them on tightly enough when I had my tires changed. Apparently one of my headlights is loose, too, although it does still work. Anyway, we tried to find some replacement nuts, but to no avail. It wasn't like I even needed a repair shop, just the parts. Because of this, we didn't get back home until around 4:45 AM, and I had work at 7. So that wasn't fun, but I guess I've recovered from it after sleeping for over twelve hours. I should probably go to bed again soon, actually. Why can't I ever get caught up with the stuff I read on the Internet? I'm sure part of it is that I get distracted by new things, like original songs based on Nintendo games and their music.

Hello, everyone out in LiveJournal Land! There aren't too many of you left, are there? Oh, well. Saturday was the twenty-second Monster-Mania Convention, and bethje and I have attended most of those. It's really more her thing than mine, but I enjoy them. Saturday's panels included some people who really had nothing to do with horror movies, like Joey Lauren Adams. I guess Jamie Kennedy sort of counts, since he was in Scream. I found Carl Weathers particularly interesting, and he really came off as a modern-day renaissance man, having been an actor, a singer, and an athlete. Someone asked him whether he was going to appear on Arrested Development when it came back (I'm still not sure whether this is certain or not), and he said it was possible. Also there were some of the cast members from Hellraiser, and I always find Doug Bradley entertaining. He has a quite bawdy British sense of humor, which I appreciate.

There's not too much else to report, but I did eat at a Peruvian restaurant on Friday. I had shrimp with garlic sauce, and they had dried plantains to eat before the meal. I noticed a lot of red snapper on the menu. Just so long as you don't trade it for what's in the box, I suppose. After that, we saw Jordan Cooper's band Sally. And last night, I had some dreams where I'm not sure what was going on. It started out being about a really boring college dorm where I don't think we even had rooms, then somehow went into something involving Muppets, Disney characters, and the Big Bad Wolf. I guess I have all that stuff swirling around in my brain from what I read and watch. Finally, I took this brief personality test that rockinlibrarian linked to, and here's my result:


free enneagram test

Sounds about right.

Yesterday, bethje and I attended the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, as we are wont to do. So far, there's only been one of them we've missed, and we even went to the one in Connecticut. Most of the question-and-answer panels this time weren't of all that much interest to me. There was one bit in the Lance Henriksen panel that I found amusing, because Beth is always bringing up this one scene in Pumpkinhead in which Lance's character is washing his son's hands, and tells him about how his grandmother used to wash his hands, and her own hands felt like paper. Strangely, Lance actually brought up this scene when someone asked him about the movie. The most interesting guest was probably Joe Turkel, not a name I'd recognize, but he played the bartender in The Shining.

He mostly talked about Stanley Kubrick (he was in a total of three of Kubrick's films), but it was pretty intriguing stuff. Cary Elwes told a story about Andre the Giant farting, which I can't say I found especially funny, but which is worth mentioning just for how bizarre an anecdote it was. The last guest we stayed for was Sam Trammell from True Blood, a show neither of us had ever watched, but he was a huge draw for the fangirls. Apparently his character on the show is naked quite often, and a lot of the questions pertained to this.

Also, there's this:

Futurama: Tip of the Zoidberg - This episode finally explained why Professor Farnsworth insists on keeping Dr. Zoidberg around despite his obvious incompetence. It reveals in flashbacks how the two of them met as monster hunters for Mom (whose real name is apparently Carol), and gave Zoidberg the chance to be a hero for once. He's somewhat more in his element when dealing with alien anatomy and diseases.

This weekend was the fifteenth Monster-Mania Convention. We'd actually missed the last one, but we attended all of the others, and of course went to this one as well. I was actually able to find a parking space at the hotel this time, which is always a good thing, and an incredibly rare one as well. bethje and I usually don't even bother going into the dealer and autograph rooms anymore. I know those are the main attractions for many guests, but, well, they cost extra. {g} Besides, if you're going to attend the question-and-answer panels, you pretty much need to show up early to get a decent seat. The panels this time included actors from the typical big three franchises highlighted at the convention: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Other guests included directors Herschell Gordon Lewis and John Carpenter, as well as the casts of Pet Semetary and Boondock Saints. So what does the latter have to do with horror? Damned if I know. Beth and I watched it when we found out it would be featured at the convention, and it wasn't bad, despite being kind of trite. There have been plenty of vigilante movies in the past (hell, I'd say even Batman counts), but I guess what this one brought to the table was vigilantes who were Irish brothers. I don't know. Interestingly, there were a fair number of guests, seemingly mostly female, who apparently showed up just to see the Boondock Saints, so I suppose the convention organizer knew what he was doing. But hey, if you're going to break the horror theme, can't you do it with the stars of non-horror movies that I like? :P Seriously, though, it was enjoyable, but kind of tiring.

After the convention, we had a meal at a nearby Friendly's, where at the next table over were seated what I can only assume were three professional cranky old people. Seriously, their entire conversation was of the "What's wrong with the youth of today?" variety. Topics included whether a Kindle would let you go back and read the book again, whether "phat" was a computer term, text speak, and people sending gifts to other people they don't really know. One of them said something like, "You text someone and give them a sheep," which I can only assume was a reference to Farmville. The thing is, I'm only thirty-two, and I already feel like an old curmudgeon much of the time. But I usually try to keep up on new fads enough that I can at least understand the essentials of how they work. I get the impression that, once you become disdainful of the youth, you start getting things wrong on purpose. That's when you start thinking the kids are gambling with Pokey Man cards, I suppose.

bethje and I have been to all twelve Monster-Mania Conventions in Cherry Hill, and the organizers just recently decided to have one in Connecticut as well. So we decided to attend, although we're not sure we'll go back if they ever have another one up there. It was kind of a long drive, during which I had to keep hearing the All-American Rejects hoping that it gives you hell, and Fergie announcing that she has that boom-boom-pow. Anyway, we stopped in Manhattan, because Stephanie M. had invited us to her birthday party, and it was my first time driving in New York City. It was pretty crazy, but we survived. What was harder to bear was paying $35 for parking. When I park in Philadelphia, I think $20 is pretty ridiculous. The party was at a bar, and I'm not generally much for bars, as they're just too noisy. I don't regret going, though. We got to meet therealtavie's twin sister Kirsten (who looks nothing like her), and see not_glimmer again before her return to Oregon.

The drive the rest of the way to Cromwell, Connecticut (which is near Hartford, not incredibly far from the Massachusetts border) was pretty uneventful, although we DID see a car that hit the jersey barrier and somehow caught on fire. Also, I learned that the Triborough Bridge is now the RFK Bridge. (Anyone remember when They Might Be Giants had an instrumental called "Triborough"? If they brought it back, would they have to call it "RFK"? {g}) Anyway, we stayed at a Super 8, and ate a late dinner at the not-very-good Cromwell Diner.

In the morning, we headed over to the Crowne Plaza where the convention was being held. I don't think it's as big as the one in Cherry Hill, but since there were fewer attendees, I suppose it didn't need to be. As usual, we primarily attended the question-and-answer sessions, the first three of which were with Ricou Browning (the Creature from the Black Lagoon for the underwater shots), Chris Sarandon (the vampire from Fright Night and the speaking voice of Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas), and Tony Moran (one of the people who played Michael Myers in the first Halloween). Tony put his girlfriend on speaker phone for his session, which was pretty cool, but the fact that she was only twenty-four might not be. Oh, well. I guess the dating rules are different when you've played a character in a classic horror movie who wears a mask and doesn't talk. {g}

We weren't interested in seeing the Jason Mewes panel, so we took some time to check out the dealer room and hang out in the lobby before coming back for Sid Haig, who always puts on a fun session. Next came the Ladies of the Evil Dead, who were the three female characters from the original Evil Dead, all of whom have been doing the convention circuit together. I was kind of interested to learn that one of them was named Betsy Baker, which I believe was an alternate name that L. Frank Baum considered for Betsy Bobbin. (It all comes back to Oz, doesn't it? :P) Then came Bruce Campbell, who was quite entertaining, and was followed up by the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street reunions. Robert Englund was there, as was the hall monitor from the first Nightmare movie.

We had dinner at Friendly's, and then drove back home. Quite a long drive by my standards, but I thought it would be even worse if we stopped somewhere, so we just drove the whole distance from Cromwell back home. And that's about all I have to say. Well, actually, it isn't, but I think I should save the rest for another post. I will, however, link to the pictures I took:

Stephanie's party
Monster-Mania

Yesterday was the eleventh Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill. This time, there really wasn't that much to do until the evening. bethje and I looked around the dealer room, but didn't buy anything. We also ate lunch at Friendly's, watched a few Three Stooges shorts and a Casper cartoon that they showed when someone who was supposed to do a Q&A didn't show up, and saw a panel discussion on an upcoming low-budget horror film called Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet. The more popular panels started at 7, and this time there was a line to get in, which I found rather annoying. Those panels are getting WAY too crowded, and I think they really should move the convention to a bigger venue. Anyway, the first of the evening's panels was "The Men Behind the Mask and Makeup," this time featuring Tyler Mane (Michael Myers from Rob Zombie's Halloween remake), Kane Hodder (Jason in the seventh through tenth Friday the 13th films), Derek Mears (Jason in the upcoming Friday remake), C.J. Graham (yet another Jason, this time from Part 6), Jeffrey Combs (Herbert from Re-Animator), and John Kassir (voice of the Crypt-Keeper). It was pretty interesting, but it was kind of irritating that the people running the convention decided to play music and video cues on occasion. The next panel consisted of Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander, and someone in the audience demanded that they (well, actually just Corey, I guess) moonwalk, to which they eventually gave in after the crowd refused to let it go. Really, I have to say that's pretty rude. These people come to the panels to answer questions, not to be audience members' trained performance monkeys. Anyway, next came the Nightmare on Elm Street reunion. This included a lot of guests, and I'm really not sure why they don't just give Robert Englund his own Q&A sessions. I mean, the guy could easily fill an hour by himself, probably even if no one asked him any questions. The last panel of the night was a reunion for The Lost Boys, preceded by Gerard McMann performing the theme song (which, honestly, is a pretty mediocre song, even though Gerard insisted that people always clamored to hear it at his concerts). Most of the questions for the last panel were directed at Corey Haim, including one woman trying to marry him to her daughter. There were also some obnoxious people behind us, who insisted on talking through the whole thing. Come on, if you want to talk amongst yourselves, why bother going into the crowded ballroom?

Dave, the guy who sets up the conventions, was talking about how there weren't very many horror franchises that hadn't yet been represented at Monster-Mania. I think he'd be all right just getting the same guests multiple times. I mean, Robert Englund is always entertaining, as are Gunnar Hansen, Sid Haig, and Doug Bradley. I think the main improvement that could be made is moving the whole thing to a bigger place, and making more of an effort to keep everything organized.

Yesterday was the ninth Monster-Mania Convention. bethje and I have attended every one of these, and this was no exception. It was far from the best one, but it wasn't the worst either. The panels for the question-and-answer sessions made more sense than they often do. I have to say that it was probably my most uncomfortable time at one of those conventions, though. The ballroom always gets hot when it fills up with people, but the heat got to me more this time than usual. It also didn't help that I was sitting in a narrow chair between two people for many of the sessions. During the session with Angus Scrimm and Reggie Bannister, I felt like I was on the verge of passing out or something. I never actually have passed out, as far as I can recall, but there have been situations where I almost wished I could. That aside, though, the panels were pretty interesting. A few things that were worth mentioning include:

• Catherine Hicks showed up for her first horror convention (as part of the Child's Play reunion [1]), but wasn't asked anywhere near enough 7th Heaven questions. {g} She did mention that people told her that the show was inspirational for them, which makes me wonder what they were smoking. Or maybe they were just being nice.
  
• Warwick Davis said that he'll be playing Nikabrik in the Prince Caspian film. He also mentioned enjoying playing the original conception of Flitwick for the early Harry Potter movies. I kind of wish someone had asked him why they changed his look (I half considered it myself, but I've never managed to work up the nerve to ask a question at one of those things), but I suppose he might have even known.
  
• When introducing Sid Haig, Dave (the guy who organizes the conventions) said that certain people didn't want him coming back after his first appearance, or something along those lines. I kind of wish I knew the details of that. I always find him to be one of the most enjoyable guests, but I have noticed that he's never been quite as abrasive since his first appearance. I wonder if he was asked to tone it down somewhat.
  
• Several people from the original Halloween series weren't too happy about Rob Zombie's remake of the first film. I'm no fan of remakes in general (there are some decent ones, but the basic idea just seems so lazy), but I'm willing to give the new Halloween the benefit of the doubt. I didn't think the original Halloween was quite as great as the people involved said it was, though, so maybe that's why I'm not quite as adverse to its being remade.
  

I guess that's about all I have to say on that subject. I think these convention reviews tend to get shorter every time (this one might be longer than the last, but I don't feel like looking right now). I did notice that, unlike every other time, the program didn't give any hints whatsoever as to who will be appearing at the next convention. Maybe they're tired of advertising guests only to have them cancel beforehand, though. My favorite was when the program for one of the earlier Monster-Manias announced that William Shatner would be at the next one. Not at all surprisingly, he wasn't.

[1] Each Q&A session usually has a title, and it's often "[insert movie or series title here] Reunion]." Others have included "The Men Behind the Mask and Makeup" (for various costumed horror stars), "The Mask and the Glove" (Robert Englund and Ken Kirzinger), and "From Scream to Scooby" (Matthew Lillard). Warwick Davis' Q&A this time was called "From Endor to Leprechaun," which I found pretty lazy. At least Matthew's had some alliteration. Why not "From Wicket to Willow," or "From Wicket to Flitwick," or something? I guess Dave wanted to include a reference to Leprechaun because it was his main tie to the world of horror, but he must have done something else that started with an L or sounded kind of like "Leprechaun," right? (For the record, I have not seen any of the Leprechaun films, nor do I have any particular desire to do so, although I do kind of wonder if they could fit into the so-bad-they're-good category.)

The seventh Monster-Mania Convention was held this past weekend. This convention is being held increasingly often, and becoming increasingly less interesting. It's pretty much not worth it to go any day except Saturday, which is good because it means spending less money, but I have no clue why they've stopped having events the other two days. This time, the first event bethje and I attended was a panel with Tom Savini, Kane Hodder, and Gunnar Hansen. As happened last time Gunnar was there, someone asked him (who played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre) what he thought of the TCM remake. It's pretty well-known that he didn't like it, but this time he had a few points to add to his complaint that they basically made Leatherface into a kid from Columbine. I'm not sure I'd mind a panel made up entirely of Gunnar complaining about the remake. {g} He mentioned that he hadn't seen the recent prequel, on which there's more later in this post.

We stuck around for the Devil's Rejects panel, featuring the always entertaining Sid Haig, this time accompanied by William Forsythe. Bill Moseley was also supposed to be there, but he'd been detained at the airport. We didn't attend the Monster Squad panel, since neither of us had seen it, and watched part of The Devil's Rejects while sitting in front of a probably-drunk guy who kept yelling at the characters in the film about dying with honor. He was eventually thrown out, and we eventually went back downstairs to get seats for the Saw panels. These were the Big Events this time around, but they weren't anywhere near as well-attended as other Big Events in the past. I suppose the stars of Saw just aren't the draw that Robert Englund is, which is definitely understandable. Still, they were interesting enough, although Beth said she thought Tobin Bell (who played Jigsaw, and actually talks like the character) came across as self-important, which I could totally see. At the end of the session, a producer took the opportunity to hype Saw IV, which strikes me as somewhat unnecessary. I mean, I guess it was pretty much inevitable that they'd make it, since the franchise has become a cash cow, but it really did seem to be a self-contained trilogy. The producer's spiel on the movie (which was something along the lines of, "Lots of twists and turns! More twists and turns than you'd ever expect! You think you've seen lots of twists and turns in the past? Well, I guarantee you haven't seen this many twists and turns!") didn't really help to sell it either.

After the Saw panels, we went to eat at an understaffed Friendly's, and then came back home. There isn't much more to say about that, but I will go back to Friday night and say that we watched the aforementioned TCM prequel then. Gunnar had complained about how they explained Leatherface in the original remake, and the prequel was even worse in that respect. Leatherface, the chainsaw, and the new round of victims were almost secondary players, though, with the most significant role being R. Lee Ermey's corrupt, brutal sheriff. In this movie, it's revealed that he got that job by killing and stealing the identity of the actual sheriff. Why this explanation is necessary is beyond me. Maybe the real Travis County Sheriff's Department insisted upon it. Nor do I know why it was necessary for Leatherface to have been adopted. In addition to the explanations being pointless, there really wasn't any suspense or actual horror at all. Besides, the kids were supposed to be going to Vietnam, and compared to that, I don't think murderous hicks with chainsaws are all that scary.

This was the weekend for the most recent Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill. bethje and I have gone to all of five of these conventions, although pretty much all we did the first time was check out the dealer tables. While we had three-day passes, there was hardly anything to do there on Sunday, so we ended up only going Friday and Saturday. In past years, there had always been SOMETHING other than movies on Sunday, so I have no clue why they're apparently phasing that out. After we got there, we found out that they were back to giving out the wristbands that you're supposed to wear for the entire convention, rather than the pins they had last time. That was pretty annoying, but at least we got to take them off a day earlier than usual this time around. Friday just had movies and no panel discussions, but the films usually have introductions by someone involved with them. They're SUPPOSED to, anyway. Sometimes the celebrities can't take five minutes to say a few words, which really strikes me as pretty lazy, considering that they're getting paid to be there and all. One of several reasons why I have to give props to Gunnar Hansen, who was at the second Monster-Mania Convention, is that he did an introduction to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre WITHOUT being asked. He really needs to come back to the convention. Anyway, getting back to the recent past, we saw most of The Devil's Rejects, but missed the introduction. On the other hand, we saw Richard Brooker (who played Jason) introduce Friday the 13th Part 3, but didn't stay to watch the movie, which we'd both seen before. (We'd also both seen The Devil's Rejects before, but that was worthier of being seen twice.)

( Jesus wept )

After that panel, we went to eat at Friendly's, where I had a shrimp basket that was good, and a strawberry shortcake sundae that wasn't. The cake was so hard that I couldn't eat it. I'm not sure if this is typical of that sundae, or if its badness this time had to do with our ordering them after the restaurant had closed.

And that's about it, really. For Monster-Mania, anyway. I'm probably going to write another post on other subjects in the near future.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention that Coreys Haim and Feldman are supposed to be guests at the next Monster-Mania. They pretty much always advertise some people who don't come. Actually, they were saying that William Shatner was supposed to be at the most recent one, but the closest we got was Jeffrey Combs doing a really lousy Shatner impression. I pretty much knew he wouldn't be coming, though. On the other hand, I doubt the Coreys will have anything better to do, unless Michael Jackson goes on trial again.

During this weekend, bethje and I attended the Monster-Mania Convention at the Cherry Hill Hilton. Beth is more of the horror fan than I am; I hadn't even seen the first Nightmare on Elm Street until just a few years ago. Since then, though, I've gained a great deal of appreciation for such films, and the conventions are always fun. This was technically our third time attending one, although we only stayed for an hour or two at the first one. I didn't think this third one was quite as good as the second, but it was still quite enjoyable.

( One, two, Freddy's coming for you )

After the convention, I dropped Beth off at the train station, and drove to work in Pennsylvania. When I was just about to get on the Schuylkill Expressway, I heard on the radio that there was a delay of about two hours, due to road construction. Since this would have made me really late, I decided to drive through the city, and take an alternate route. As it turned out, I was only a half hour late. Driving through South and West Philadelphia isn't exactly fun, but Sunday afternoon is probably one of the better times to do it, if you really have to.