Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Spooky Empire Mayhem '15

Ok I realize this isn't anime related but it is con related and a big part of my blog will be taking a look at Central Florida cons that I have an interest in. So on with my view of Spooky Empire.

I have been attending cons since I was 15, back when my first experience was a few comics for sale by a handful of vendors inside Westshore plaza way back in '87. There wasn't much to browse through but I did return with a couple of Gold Key Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery Comics and a book called Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew by his wife, Linda Lee. It is a biography about his life pre and post fame. The coolest thing about it was the pictures of him in the corner that you can flip the book and see a scene of him kicking ass in Enter the Dragon. This book came out sometime in the 70's in a pre-VCR America for the consumer market.

Since that time. My first true con was Necronomicon at the Holiday Inn on Cypress back in 1991, one year after I graduated from high school. I was there mainly to find poorly dubbed anime on VHS that sold for $5 to $15 bucks and generally were all bad multiple generation copies.

For a while I didn't go to many cons until the 2000's when Metrocon debuted in Tampa. Finally an anime con in Tampa devoted to Anime. So with the occasional Tampa Bay Comic Con, I mainly only attend Metrocon.

Fast forward to 2015 when I was invited by indies horror director, Todd Sheets, to attend Spooky Empire, my first horror con experience. I have known Todd since I was in middle school when we were making short horror films together. So I was thrilled to tag along for a screening of his movie House of Forbidden Secrets at Spooky Empire. The movie stars Lew Temple of The Walking Dead TV series and brought back Dyanne Thorne to the world of Horror. As many cult movie and grindhouse fans know, Thorne played Ilsa in the notorious Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS movie.

Having paid my $8 just to park behind the Doubletree Hilton and forked over $55, I was finally allowed to roam inside the hotel. My mission was to find the dealer's room and catch up with Todd and the gang. It would make battling crazy Orlando Saturday traffic worth it.

I met up with Todd when I saw him walking around with the lead in House of Forbidden Secrets, Antwoine Steele. Also in attendance was the lovely Sarah Merrill, who I have previously met at the Tampa premiere of HFS at the Tampa Pitcher Show, Tampa's last true grindhouse theater.

We mainly spent time in the dealer's room looking at movies on DVD and Blu ray for sell. I was tapped out so I was in no position to purchase anything. Such is the life of a fan.

Then we went quickly through the guest room and I saw the hare Krishna zombie dude from the original and best Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero. Then we dropped off a DVD for Phil Anselmo, lead singer for Pantera, who is a mega horror fan.

After, we sat at the bar, I was tired after walking around all day, but I was still energized enough to met some cool horror movie directors, actors, magazine and website journalists, and special effects artists. I have always loved special effects artists after watching a Fangoria video documentary on Tom Savini back in the 80's. I got to work with Daran Holt on a few short movies with the one and only Todd Sheets. In fact, Todd gave me a copy of Zombie Bloodbath 2 that on the extras has two short movies I was involved in. One features me as a zombie getting taken down by a hammer.

Slowly 7pm crept up on us as we walked into the theater with two big screens and an excellent sound system for the screening of HFS. This was my second time seeing it. It really is a cool flick and deserves your support if you enjoy extreme horror and gore movies.

We ended the evening at the Orlando Ale House, celebrating all things horror. I drank two large glasses of Mountain Dew to prepare for the long, 76 miles in fact, drive back to Tampa.

So ended my first horror con. Was it worth $55? Not really, the price went up as more American Horror Story stars were added to the guest list. It would have been worth it to meet one of my heroes like Romeo or Carpenter. There was weird and gross stuff in the dealer's room but it didn't bother me at all. I have a thick skin for that stuff. I did see some cool retro stuff from classic monsters movies that I love from the old Universal and Hammer movies.

With all that said, I would probably go back depending on the guest list.

No comments:

Post a Comment