Comicon Aftermath

Got back from the Pittsburgh Comicon on Sunday night. Since we started going in 2000, I’ve had the same complaints—it opens too early (10:00 am on Friday, fer Chrissakes?), it goes on too long, it doesn’t bring in a crowd (to its defense, neither does any other Pittsburgh-based show), its admission is over-priced, the staff isn’t particularly friendly and it’s located in a part of Pittsburgh that’s always under construction and congested with traffic. Add a couple of Penguins and Pirates games into that mix, top it with an accident that shut down the half of the Parkway that wasn’t being blown up by PenDot and you wound up with an excruciatingly slow and unprofitable show. At least for the vendors.

Honestly, though, I was a little surprised. I thought sure the “ghoul factor” would have been more present this year around, given that the show’s creator, Mike George, had been recently convicted of the First Degree Murder of his wife in 1990. Whether or not you believe Mike is guilty or innocent, you have to admit the novelty of attending a convention that has this sort of brand new mystique to it. Quite the opposite happened, however. A number of folks—both attendees and, allegedly, guests—boycotted the show for this very reason. Rumor has it that some of the vendors referred to it as “Murder Con”, though I didn’t hear anyone refer to it like that directly.

The final tally, though, despite the heavy draws of David Prowse (listed as “Star War’s [sic] Darth Vader”) and Jim Balent and Holly Golightly, the crowd just didn’t want to come and, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, we couldn’t stop ‘em.

Now, we’ve long since resigned ourselves to the fact that it’s really difficult to make money at a Pittsburgh-based show, but we tend to enjoy ourselves at Comicon. For one thing, I love comic books. They hold a place in my heart right next to the movies. Plus, as far as the show itself goes, it was the first we ever attended professionally and it’s helped us establish a good base of close friends. If it weren’t for Comicon, I doubt I’d have as good a relationship with the comic artists I now count among my friends (for an abbreviated list, please see Sirens of Cinema Magazine). And it can usually be counted on to give us at least two out of three on our Fun/Contacts/Money Success Triangle. This year, due to low attendance (thanks to construction, traffic, games, weather, and Pittsburgh indifference in general), we barely squeaked by with Fun and Contacts.

As usual, there were some amazing artists there, a lot of whom I hope to work with in Sirens later in the year. And it was cool to see Jim and Holly, Joe Jusko, Billy Tucci, Mike and Diana Okamoto, Dave Nestler, Dorian, Louis Small Jr., Chris Yambar and many other Comicon friends. A couple of my students showed up to hang out, as did Jeff Waltrowski, Eric and Lorena (Splatter Movie, Black Sunday) and we got to have drinks with Kristen Blank and the Rev. Steve Foland. It was a bummer that several people we were hoping to see had cancelled, particularly Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Michael Kaluta and Kane Hodder (damn you, Kane!!).

My personal highlight came on Saturday afternoon. Amy and I were guests on a panel with legendary writer/editor/artist Al Feldstein, creator of EC Comics’ horror line (Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror). I remember when we first ordered our table, I requested that we be included on this “Very Scary” panel, which also originally consisted of Al, Kane, Len Barnhart (Reign of the Dead) and others, but we never heard back. Flipping through the program on Saturday, I saw that we’d been added to the line up. And imagine my surprise when it was just the three of us and a three-quarter-filled audience! (I was half-terrified that Conrad Brooks (Plan 9 From Outer Space) was going to invite himself to the panel as well—something he’s notorious for—but he didn’t arrive until much later on Saturday, relief of reliefs.) So I got the chance to interact with one of my own personal heroes and influences! (And if you doubt any of that, watch The Resurrection Game and pay close attention to Necro-Phil!)

Still, despite long periods of crushing boredom—trying to engage the tumbleweeds in conversation just to keep the gun out of my mouth!—we still managed to have a good and productive time. A few things were discussed that could lead to a cool 2008 and some new friends were made who could also add cool to the coming year. But more than anything else, it made me wish that it was October and that Wasteland was right around the corner.

The Return From Wasteland

Last week, I sent out three copies of Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut, started teaching at the Savini School of Digital Photography, wrote more of my new book, copied almost a hundred DVDs - none of that compared to the excitement of a new pending Cinema Wasteland.

Yes, this is another of those blogs that begins, "As you all know, Wasteland is our favorite show..." The Cleveland convention has always been a highlight of our year and this past April show was no exception. In fact, it was one of the best times we’d ever had, particularly as no one emailed me on Saturday to tell me that a company I was working for was no longer in business. Not losing a job first thing in the morning is a terrific way to ward off depression.

Wasteland is our "family" show. While we generally have an awesome time at every show, Wasteland is the show where we feel completely comfortable and welcome. The antithesis of the high school gym feeling you often receive at biz gatherings. If you’re a regular reader of this online screed, then you know how we feel about this show, Ken and Pam Kish the promoters, the staff, the hotel, the atmosphere, the humidity, etc. At the risk of alienating the new reader(s), I think I’ll forgo the Romper Room roster ("I saw Damien and Ed and Jill and Greg and Carrie and Mike and...) and just hit the highlights:

I somehow managed to con William Wright, one of my head writers at Sirens of Cinema, to drag his wife and young child (the amazingly friendly (clingy? Needy?) Harlan Hunter) 600 miles from Tennessee to join us in the insanity. Which was awesome. Hell, half the staff of Sirens was in attendance at this show, which was also, you know, awesome. Within seconds, Harlan had lept from mom Olivia’s arms into Amy’s, and then into Mink Stole’s. Mink’s response: "I love that fans are always giving me things at conventions."

I also loved that Mink loved the issue of Sirens containing her interview. (11, incidentally, with the Joe Jusko cover, still available through the site.) I hadn’t heard from her after what I considered to be the best interview I’d done all last year, so I was terrified I’d insulted her, etc. Turns out there was a family tragedy that kept her from responding. (What a relief!) So my terror was immediately replaced by, okay, guilt. Still, she liked the issue and that made me do the little "Happy Mink Stole Liked the Issue Dance". Not to be confused with the "Happy Wasteland Dance" and the "Happy Doughnut Dance". We do a lot of dances at Happy Cloud Pictures.

Five minutes before the dealer’s room opened on Friday, Ilsa herself, Dyanne Thorne, appeared in the doorway to introduce herself to the room and to wish everyone a terrific show. She looked amazing and that was a classy thing to do. One dealer grumbled, "Sure, that’s because she’s going to make all the money." He was summarily killed and eaten. We did the "Happy Devoured Grumpy Dealer Dance".

Sid Haig walked through the door and shook my hand instead of stabbing me in the throat with a letter opener. Not that he’s ever done this, but it always feels good when he doesn’t.

Henrique Couto arrived with a friend of his from New Jersey. Her name was Regina. She was dressed as a school girl. Eventually, she overcame her shyness and joined in on the fun. Henrique had dropped 30 pounds or so from the last time we’d seen him. He also never wore pants the entire time he was there.

Low Budget Pictures was represented this trip by Chris Seaver (genius director of Mulva 2), Travis (genius actor of Carnage for the Destroyer) and Josh (genius star of Film Crew and now legally allowed to travel within the state of Ohio once again). They yelled a lot and refused to give me a copy of Ski Wolf. No matter how much blow I hooked them up with.

We presented Tom Sullivan with the very Grendel mask he wore in Splatter Movie. He was pleased. Then he went back to constructing a seven-foot-tall manniquin of The Dread, from the film of the same name. Later, we learned he’d exchanged the Grendel mask for a taco and some duct tape. His partner, Pat Reese, stole the mask back and ate the taco.

Our executive producer, Fred Obermiller, gave us a copy of "Cinema Skin" that contained a rave review of A Feast of Flesh and two screen grabs of the ever-topless Rachelle Williams. I conned William Wright into going up to her in the bar to have her sign it. (Jeez, I can get him to do anything.) It was funny. She only slapped him twice before autographing it. He only slapped her once in return. Now they are legally married in Dubai.

Mike and Carolyn Haushalter joined us for dinner at Applebee’s on Friday, which rocked. The company and the food. As we were leaving, there were two hosts at the door talking as we left. As we passed the first one, he said, "Have a great night." The second one, thinking he was speaking to her, said "What?"

I said, "He said ’have a good night’."

She said, "Oh, no - I thought -"

"Oh, so I’m not allowed to have a good night?" I said. "Jeez, the service at this place."

She turned beet red. I did the "Happy Embarressed and Confused Applebee’s Hostess Dance".

David and Tara joined us on Saturday. They were supposed to join us Friday as well, but, fortunately, they were not killed on the way. Just delayed. We did the "Happy Still Alive David and Tara Dance" (that joke never gets old). Tara had created a Tara-sized shirt out of the Happy Cloud shirt we’d given her for Christmas. She’d snipped away almost three yards of material. Now it’s useless as a bed sheet. Jeez. Amy dragged them all over the dealer’s room to introduce them to all of our con friends. Tara met Unky Lloyd Kaufman and got all verklempt. (Tara gets star-struck during card tricks, though. She once met that guy who dresses in question marks and tries to sell you a phone book-sized tome on Free Money. It took her two hours to blink or breathe again, she was so impressed. She bought six books.) Unky Lloyd followed her around for several minutes trying to convince her to be in Troma’s new "Pornogeist". He wrote his number on the back of David’s head for her. Next week, we all drive up to New York to write our names on the side of the Troma building and then run. They’ll be awestruck by our penmanship!

Saturday night, Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut (what I thought was the final version, but I found four bad sound cues) screened to a packed room. We were astounded at the amount of people in there. Some of them weren’t even in the movie! There were three guys in the back row talking back to the movie the whole time and were actually 93% as funny as the movie itself. Amy and I introduced the movie by saying "Not in the face," and then drinking every time we had a panic attack. It’s like "Quarters" for neurotics.

Al Tuskes, from Precinct 13, joined us for the screening and claimed to have enjoyed it immensely. He obviously wasn’t lying because he joined us for drinks afterwards. A lot of drinks. Apple Juice, ice water and bible passages.

"Bible Passages" is made with vodka.

At one point, I was talking to Regina and this dumb blonde dressed like Milia in Resident Evil came over to my table, looked at me, then took Regina’s arm and said "I HAVE to interview you for my show." Then proceded to yak at her in front of my table while I shouted "No, that’s okay. Ignore the guest and interview the attendee. Very classy, Queen of the Peroxide!" Actually, I didn’t shout the latter. But I thought it loudly. Later, said woman was found in the lobby covered in sperm and shame. I may have made that last part up too, depending on whether or not it can be construed as libel.

By Sunday, we’re usually ready to come home, but not this time. We were exhausted, from the drinking, the revelry and the corridor beer pong competition (combining man’s love of both beer and pong), but we weren’t ready to leave. But finally, we tore ourselves away. It took us over an hour to say our goodbyes - To Lixx Online, to Ken and Pam, to Charlie and Tim and Kate, to Carrie and Mike, to the Toe Tag folks, Art and Allana, Rob Lucas, Xploited, the Professor, Mary-Anne... A wonderful time was had by all. Or, at least, by us. And isn’t that what’s really important?

Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut - first trailer!

It took a while, but I was finally able to upload the first trailer for Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut.

Don't forget that you can check this out for yourself at Cinema Wasteland, Saturday, April 5 at 10:00 PM! Ken and Pam are screening the finished cut of the film in all its glory. We're not ready to start selling it from the site yet, as we're currently shopping it around, but we'll have a few copies available at Wasteland, while supplies last.

Feel free to grab this and imbed it on your own page!

Best Vampire Hunter of 2007... and the winner is -

Me!

Hey, I didn't know I was even nominated, which would have been an honor in and of itself! Does that mean I beat out Kate Beckensale in Underworld 2? Or did that come out in 2006? Okay, regardless, she was a vampire hunter, but still...

Anyway, you can check out the other winners of The Horror Oscars, hosted by Desert Screams Productions, HERE.

So, to you three or four people who hated me in A Feast of Flesh, I say to you "Nyah!" To the rest of you who loved me, including me, I humbly accept this award on my behalf.

* * *

It's still snowing, the mine is still drilling, my cold continues to plague me. On the plus side, I may have conquered my insomnia. At the very least, I'm attempting to sleep it off.

Tomorrow, Amy and I head to the set of George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories, written and produced by our friend, Jeff Monahan. I'm shooting stills and covering the production, Amy is playing a nurse in a key scene. The first part of the shoot is at Penn State, the second at Laurel Caverns. Yep, nothing like heading underground during the winter! But check out the movie HERE. It's gonna be cool!

* * *

The new issue of Sirens of Cinema is going to press this weekend. It has a beautiful cover by Daniel Horne and features interviews with Lena Headey (Sarah Connor: The Terminator Chronicles), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematery) and a special goodbye to Malia Nurmi (aka Vampira). I mention this because I want everyone who reads this to go out and buy multiple copies, subscribe twice and force complete strangers to make purchases of their own, at gunpoint if necessary.
Sales aren't down, I just want to see who will do it. I love exercising power!

Back from Chicago

Okay, I'm dying from some new, exciting cold, thanks to the multiple temperatures my body was subjected to this weekend, not to mention ongoing insomnia, so I'll make this fast.

We spent the weekend in the wonderful world of Chicago for the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, one of our favorite shows of the year (after Cinema Wasteland, of course). As usual, we got to see the airport and the hotel, but this year, we also saw a very icy parking lot and a very clean Target (we needed supplies - sandwiches, chocolate, booze, etc.).

The folks at Creation - Adam, Stephanie, Leticia - treated us like stars. Fangoria's editor, Tony Timpone (the man, the legend), brought the layout for my Rage article for me to check out, which was awesome. And we were set up across from Kane Hodder on one side and Ari Lehman and Sid Haig on the other. And we were back-to-back with composer Harry Manfriedi! So, we had great neighbors. And because Kane actually noticed this time when I hit him back (he usually punches me hello), he swore he'd never hit me again. Now instead of taps to the chest that collapse my lungs, he gives me bear hugs that compress the rest of my organs. Not sure which I prefer, actually.

I had planned a number of projects for the slow periods of the show -- interviewing people for the upcoming Resurrection Game DVD, proof-reading the new issue of Sirens of Cinema, etc -- but oddly enough, we didn't have any slow periods. Thanks to many pounds of cookies provided by our producer and sponsor, Tim Buchholz, much of my time was spent harassing people into taking freebies (you'd think they were poisoned or something? Of course, as one fan said, "This isn't a show that engenders trust!"). The rest of the time was taken up by the stampede of people who wanted to buy copies of A Feast of Flesh, take pictures with Amy and Sofiya, and snatch up our 30 copies of Splatter Movie.

Yes, for the first time in our convention career, we sold out of a title. Completely SOLD OUT of Splatter Movie by 1pm on Sunday. Most of those copies had sold even before our screening on Saturday. And the screening itself went over pretty well. We had a pretty packed house, even though you needed two sherpas and a sled dog team to find the screening room, and the two guys who decided to "Rocky Horror" the movie stayed for the entire thing, so at least they weren't bored!

We sold a number of subscriptions to Sirens as well, four of them without having to talk them into it! They wanted them because they'd read the magazine! (See? I TOLD you people read it! They don't just buy it for the free gum!)

The only drawback came at the very end of the show. A sextet of douche-waffles decided to attempt to take advantage of our and Sofiya's good graces. But they were the instruments of their own misfortune, which turned out to be very funny in the end. Still, we should have allowed Kane to hurt them.

And while I'm sure I'll forget a few names, we just wanted to say thanks to Rob, Tammy, Amber, Codger, Chris (Phreeq), Yo Joe, Johnny, Harry (sorry we were out of #4), Debbie, Mr. Skin, Marv, Chadwick and company, Ryan and Michelle, Gabby, Betsy, Sid, Ari, Kane, Megan, Ron, Cathy, Jeremy, Jen, Monique, Saint, Monet and August. And, especially, Tim B.

And Acid and my Monkey, Kory Chupacabra (and maybe I'll explain that one later).

So let's hear it for selling out of Splatter Movie! Hear that, distributors? People LOVE US!

Right... going to bed now.

Sleepless in Waynesburg

My insomnia continues to be my best friend, though I have been a little more successful at the shut-eye thing of late. Slowly but surely I'm remastering the fine art of sleeping.

Of course, I can't just blame the stress or my natural penchant towards spaz-ism. One of our local coal companies misrepresented itself to us and our neighbors. Instead of the single line of pipe they claimed they would lay (to vent methane from one of the mines), they have begun to drill a methane capture well on our neighbor's hill. Which is directly in between two of their biggest pastures. Being sheep farmers, they need the pastures to feed their sheep. Without grazing land, sheep tend to do stupid things like starve and die. To make matters even more fun, the drilling goes on 24 hours a day, the sound travels over four miles to our land, keeping me awake even more. But, since I'm usually up anyway, the noise gives me the opportunity to be angry as well as exhausted.

When our neighbors complained to workers that this is not what was agreed upon, the workers replied, "We'll do what we want when we want."

So I'll be taking this up with the news--TV and paper. And internet. And, possibly, from my roof, shouting at God.

It's a character flaw of mine. I hate oppression. Not a big fan of corporate lying, either. Makes me testy.

With all this in mind, I've been trying to focus on getting things prepared for the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Chicago this weekend. It's always a great show for us, economically and funwise. And this year, we're listed as official guests. And Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut is premiering (in front of an unbiased audience, as terrifying as that may be) at 4:00 pm on Saturday. Which is a great time slot. The proof of my claims can be found HERE.

In other Fangoria news, my third-ever article for them runs in the current issue. It details my and Amy's set-visit to The Rage, where we got to hang with Robert Kurtzman and Andrew Divoff for the better part of the day, as well as get a personal tour of Precinct 13--Bob K's studio in Ohio. Seeing this piece in print gave me a special little thrill. Even though I've been writing professionally for about a decade now, I think that I've mentioned that Fangoria was always a market I'd dreamed of "cracking". And now I have, three issues in a row. So now I await Satan's collection on the contract I must have signed on one of my insomnia-enduced episodes.

Enough babbling - if you're going to be in Chicago this weekend, and, really, I see no reason why you shouldn't be, swing by the Happy Cloud table and say hi, pick up a copy of the pre-release of Splatter Movie, buy a subscription to Sirens of Cinema and say nice things about my hair.

Good night, good luck and good news tomorrow.

SPLATTER MOVIE is...

Done.

Every time I finish a movie and announce it's completion, I feel like I'm lying. It feels utterly strange to think of a movie as "finished". Even in this case. Really, Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut needs some minor sound work, and likely needs a few tweaks to the credits. And I still need to work out a deal with the special guest end credits musicians (not Lorraine 'a Malena this time sadly, but a band completely different but still awesome to be announced later). But, ostensibly, this movie is complete.

The final piece of the puzzle was provided by Alan Rowe Kelly (writer and director of the brilliant I'll Bury You Tomorrow and the delightfully-demented The Blood Shed). Alan came aboard at the last minute to provide the voice of "Devora Simmons", the off-screen documentrix who is motivating the whole shebang. And his voice gives the movie, strangely, an even deeper edge. Alan's voice has a Barbara Walters tinge to it, so the movie now feels even, dare I say it, 'legitimate'.

A consumate professional, Alan read each line in the three-page voice over script six times, giving me plenty to choose from. Which was awesome. Less awesome was treating each line with filters and room tone to make it match the existing sound while, at the same time, removing my voice as much as possible from the tracks. And, of course, while doing that, I couldn't help but tweak shot-length, fuss over color corrections, remix certain musical stings, futz with some additional effects shots... Still, all in all, the final pass on the film only took a few hours on Friday and Sunday.

And then it was done.

To really add to the surreal "final pass", I was also transferring some old Resurrection Game behind-the-scenes footage from VHS to DVD. So parts of our first movie played while I finished up our latest one. The ten years in between felt like a dynasty. Watching old, ancient footage of us--we were all so young!--struggle with confined spaces and war-era equipment as we strived beyond logic to finish our first ridiculous epic. There were two images in particular that struck me simultaneously.

On our snazzy i-Mac, I edited the end Splatter Movie credits and found a shot of me behind our new (-ish) XL-2 DV camera. Meanwhile, on the television, there came an ancient shot of me jerry-rigging a rented 16mm Arri-BL with duct tape and a trim of black leader to keep the film magazine and focus rings from falling off. And I'm talking about shooting the assembled movie off a flatbed linear editing machine with my own ancient VHS camcorder.

How far we've come. And yet, we still often wonder what the hell we're doing and why. Just as we did ten years ago.

Right now, we're making advanced Splatter Movie DVDs to send out to prospective distributors. At the same time, I'm readying more VHS footage (over 60 hours of the crap!) for Jeff Waltrowski as he labors over the new Resurrection Game documentary for the upcoming 10th Anniversary DVD. For this doc, I'm running down our stars for new interviews. Francis Veltri I caught the day before he and his entire family moved to Indiana. Ray Yeo is in the process of readying his own house for sale before moving his family to a new school district. Kristen Pfeifer, at last message, lives in Oregon with her new husband. Dave Shremp passed away of a brain tumor three weeks after principal photography was completed. A special memorial is also planned for the DVD in his honor.

And I was continually struck with how far we've come as artists (or "artists", whichever) in ten years. We may not be rich or world famous, but we achieved a great deal of what we set out to do. And that's enough to get me to sleep at night.

Or would be, if this damned insomia would go away... but that's another blog.