The Bar

Wendell

Once again The Bar made it’s presence known at Horrorfind Weekend, and it was a very interesting trip. We got to meet and hang out with everyone and had a really great time. We had some drinks and spent A LOT of money. I’d like to say the same about the ride there: we encountered a ton of random shit, seeing the aftermath of a gunshot victim and I got a big FUCK YOU from some dumb-ass in the middle of the road (I hate fucking DC). Then the six million peso man blew a kiss at Shane Train and caught the finger. Once we got there, it was on.

My goal at Horrorfind Weekend X was to get my “The Devil’s Rejects” DVD signed by Ken Foree, William Forsythe, Sid Haig and Bill Mosley, and my goal was achieved. Not only did I get my DVD signed I got to hang out and bull shit with these guys. They didn’t rush us away like they were in a hurry, they just kicked back and told stories and had a good time with their fans.

Going into it, I was really pumped to meet William Forsythe and Bill Mosley for the first time and have them autograph my collectors edition of “The Devils Rejects”. I was a little nervous meeting Forsythe because of all the intense roles that he had played (thinking that he would be an angry guy) but was really shocked to learn how down to Earth and cool he was. I stood around and talked with him for while before noticing that he was bare foot but I learned a very interesting fact about my favorite scene from TDR. The one where Forsythe is talking to Robert Trebor about Groucho Marx:

Marty Walker: That goddamn fucking Elvis Presley
Sheriff John Wydell: What did you say about the King?
Marty Walker: I said he died three days before Grouch…
[Wydell grabs Walker]
Sheriff John Wydell: Son, if you ever say another derogatory word about Elvis Aron Presley in my presence again, I will kick the living shit out of you .

He improvised that whole line. It wasn’t scripted and shocked the hell out of Trebor. He told me that when he asked Rob Zombie how he should handle the Elvis insult (being a Elvis Presley Fan) Rob said handle it like you normally would and out came that quote. That is fucking awesome.

Other highlights for me included meeting Bill Mosley and Ken Foree and hanging out with those cats. They were a trip. They talked a lot of shit and joked around and it seemed that they where having as much fun as everyone who came to meet them were. That, to me, was really cool. This is also the second time I met Sid Haig and that is always an adventure. I could really hang out with that dude on a daily basis. He told a lot of jokes and was very entertaining. He had the coolest thongs for sale. They had a picture of Captain Spalding on them and they said ‘It just taste so damn good” right across the crotch.

(During a conversation with Sid Haig he said he couldn’t handle me if I was drunk. He also “clowned” Shane Train for laughing maniacally at his jokes.
He said “Goddamn boy, Don’t bust an annurism, shit”, then he and I busted “Spalding” quotes back and forth.)

(Ken Foree doesn’t just play a pimp in The Devil’s Rejects, he really is a pussy getting MoFo)

Michael Biehn’s personality didn’t impress me much, he was kinda arrogant and acted like he didn’t want to be there. Of coarse I might have offended him when I pulled “Meggido” out of my back instead of Aliens. I felt sorry for Jennifer Blanc (Malevolence: Bereavement, Dark Angel) because nobody asked for her autograph all day so I got hers as well. I felt weird about asking Daeg Faerch (young Michael Myers: Rob Zombie’s Halloween) but WTF he was there.

(this kid creeps me out.)

Daeg Faerch actually is in an up-coming 2009 film called “The Pig People” that I kinda want to see. I saw the teaser and it looked pretty crazy.

I got a bunch of autographs and I picked up a few DVD’s, there wasn’t as much to do as the previous years but I blame that on the venue. But it was still a lot of fun.

I got autographs from:
The Devils Rejects DVD: Sid Haig, William Forsythe, Bill Mosley & Ken Foree.
Bite Me! DVD: Erika Smith
Meggido: The Omega Code 2 DVD: Michael Biehn
Chainsaw Sally DVD:April Monique Burril
An Erotic Werewolf in London DVD:Darian Caine
8×10 photo:Daeg Faerch
8×10 photo:Bill Mosley
8×10 photo:Jennifer Blanc
Thongs (for my wife)Sid Haig
and met and took pictures with many more.

I purchased:
DVD:Chainsaw Sally
DVD:An Erotic Werewolf In London
DVD:Spider Baby
DVD:The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Remake) 2-disc specail edition with collectors tin.
T-Shirt:The Official Horrorfind Weekend X T-shirt

(I wasn’t even sure of Erica Smith’s role in Bite Me! but after meeting her I remembered. She was really sweet and happy to greet everyone)

(Darian Cain is a pretty cool chick, she is in a lot of soft core b-rate horror films and she cool to talk too.

(Winston proclaimed that I was more famous than J LaRose, and that he wanted my autograph. Troy Chin Chain did seem really happy to meet me.)

(This chick freaked me out at first but she ended up being awesome, we talked about a lot of our favorite b-rates)

Winston

Like Wendell, I too had a set goal for Horrorfind X. My three favorite movies of all time are “Ed Wood”, “Aliens”, and “Jackie Brown”, and the last minute addition of Conrad Brooks provided me to opportunity to get my DVD’s of all three signed by Brooks, Michael Biehn, and Sid Haig, respectively. On top of that, Chris Sarandon was there too, and seeing as how it was he who groped the first set of boobs I ever laid eyes on in “Fright Night”, it seemed only right that he autograph my DVD of that as well.

The goal turned out to be much easier endeavor than I expected. Most of the attention of the unusually sparse crowd was on Roddy Piper, who I had absolutely no interest in meeting whatsoever.

We’ll start with the ride up there. It was actually a pretty smooth ride until the directions provided by the Marriot’s website had us drive through the heart of DC. At that point, the whole ride became an exercise in anger management. My fiance (High Five) had the unenviable job of trying to navigate the particularly nasty city traffic, complete with idiots that walk in front of moving traffic and get mad when you point it out, as Wendell learned when he yelled at one jaywalker to read the “don’t walk” sign and received a resounding “fuck you” in return. DC finally turned into Maryland, at which point the directions became completely pointless except for the address. They had us turn the wrong way, which gave us a bit of a show when traffic slowed up big time to rubberneck at shooting victim. Undeterred, we ventured on, busting a u-turn when we realized that we were going the wrong way, stopping for some grub, and putting Shane Train in position to receive some loving from a male motorist that fell in love.

(Note: don’t eat at the McDonald’s in Adelphi, MD unless you are prepared for a rough couple of hours.)

So we arrived, and to be honest, the venue sucks. The one in Baltimore seemed a bit better equipped to handle to festivities. It’s a major pain in the ass to locate, and this one is located on a college campus, making it a bit awkward when you walk past a student on their way to test while yelling that “William fucking Forsythe is the motherfucking man”. The merch room was way smaller, making the selection available painfully weak this year. The celebrity room was split up, making the autograph session a bit more of a task. The hotel bar is horrible as well, hidden behind a Starbucks, not staffed enough, and ridiculously overpriced. I met a lady there who expressed the same concerns, and was so distraught about it that before she even made a walkthrough to see what’s up she had to get hammered. (Wendell and I handed her a business card of course).

The venue seems to have affected the turnout, because there were no lines anywhere. I’m used to having to wait in a line just to get tickets into the place, but we were late and still walked right up. With the exception of Roddy Piper, who had a lot of wrestling fans come out for his appearance, the celebrities had little to no lines.

The first thing I wanted to do was get Conrad Brooks to sign my “Ed Wood”, which I figured would be cheap. I ended up getting kind of hustled by the guy, but I didn’t really mind as he didn’t have much interest and was genuinely friendly and enthusiastic (read: senile). It was a cool experience until picture time:

This got a bit awkward. I don’t avoid getting my picture taken but don’t seek it out either, but this guy was persistent, so I humored him. Wendell left me hanging when he just couldn’t take it anymore, and I made my awkward split to find my fiance, who had become star struck by Tony Todd of all people. (She makes a good point though, “Candyman” is one of the few horror icons that actually gets to keep his facial features exposed.)

Tony Todd was wearing a pink shirt again this year, so I wasn’t particularly concerned and went about getting Michael Biehn’s autograph on “Aliens” with Wendell. I was kind of disappointed in Biehn’s disposition as well. I’m not sure if he was being arrogant or was overwhelmed, but either way he didn’t seem too comfortable. Fuck it, my “Aliens” is signed by Hicks.

Next was Chris Sarandon, who’s table was surprisingly dead but who ended up being a pretty cool guy. He wasn’t promoting anything, saying that he is doing some theater and has some parts on TV and was willing to bullshit for a minute. Biehn and Sarandon’s personalities were basically flip flopped from what I was expecting. He was polite to my girl and signed his name with “Jerry Dandridge” under his sig, so he is cool in my book.

I met up with Wendell and Shane in the other room after I relieved my stomach of the hour old Adelphi McDonald’s (once again: avoid) and watched Wendell become best friends with the cast of “The Devil’s Rejects” and got my copy of “Jackie Brown” signed by Sid Haig. Haig cracking on Shane was a moment to remember.

My favorite of all the celebrities was actually SFX master Greg Nicotero, who I wanted to sign my copy of “The Hills Have Eyes” remake. He did the makeup for “Mirrors” as well, and asking him about it I learned that Alexander Aja was happy with the final cut, and that Nicotero is a bit perturbed about the way Fox is promoting the film, feeling that Kiefer Sutherland should be featured more in the ads. I also got a look at the original Necronomicon from “The Evil Dead” movies, which I though I was really cool. As successful the guy is and with all the movies he has worked on, he was really fond of the thing and I thought it was awesome that a memento from a lower scale film seemed to be his most prized possession.

Other highlights:

• William Forsythe pointing the way to the bar.
• Sid Haig telling Wendell he was scared to see how he would act with a beer in him.
• Sid Haig laughing at Shane.
• Ken Foree being awesome (”FUCK TONY TODD!”)

I hope they work on the merch room next year, because it was awful this year. If not for the Darian Cane - Shock-o-Rama corridor, John Johnson’s Darkstone Entertainment table, and the guys from Dark Imaginings, it would have been a lost cause.

Despite it’s shortcomings, it still wasn’t short on fun, so:

Official Bar Score: 

My Purchases:
Killing Spree
Chainsaw Sally
Night of the Fools/Gypsy Vampire’s Revenge
Shadowhunters
Night of the Living Dead (Remake)

My Autographs
Conrad Brooks - “Ed Wood”, “Night of the Fools/Gypsy Vampire’s Revenge”
April Monique Burril - “Chainsaw Sally”
John Johnson - “Shadowhunters”
Tom Savini - “Night of the Living Dead (Remake)”
Chris Sarandon - “Fright Night”
Greg Nicotero - “The Hills Have Eyes”
Michael Biehn - “Aliens”
Sid Haig - “Jackie Brown”