Doomed Movieblog

So yeah, I went to my very first horror convention last weekend. Screamfest in Orlando seemed like an appropriate place to start. First impression: Well, it was less embarrassing than an anime con, that’s for sure. I’ve attended 5 anime conventions over the last 8 years or so and they left me feeling disappointed, depressed, and pretty stuck up. It was weird walking around thinking: “Wow, I’m too cool for this.” Now, I think everyone around me was probably looking at me and thinking: “Wow, this guy is a fucking tool.” At a horror con, I didn’t get this feeling. I felt just as dorky as everybody else with my snobbier instincts (mostly) in check.

I quickly discovered that you can do one of three things at a horror convention:

1. Get in line all day to get autographs.

2. Get in line all day to watch films/attend q&a sessions.

3. Go shopping in the vendor room and go home.

I went for number 3 and managed to get these DVD bootlegs:

Four Flies On Grey Velvet
Beyond The Door
Night Of The Creeps
Blue Monkey
Vampire Circus
The People Who Own The Dark

There was a booth selling old issues of Fangoria (some for $5 apiece). I picked up two from the mid 80s (issues 42 and 45) that are grand reads. Oh and I got a free Masters Of Horror poster (which got ruined in the rain the following day) and I passed out some Doomed Moviethon stickers. Okay, “passed out” isn’t really accurate. I placed them in strategic locations throughout the day and they were gone later. Hopefully, that means they were picked up by random people and not thrown in the garbage by the Screamfest staff or something.

However, I have to wonder if I’m doing something wrong. My anime convention experiences have been awful and this, my first horror con, was a major meh. Is it because I’m in Florida? Or perhaps, it’s because I’m not particularly social at these things. I did manage to recommend Umberto Lenzi’s Eyeball to a couple of girls who probably thought I was flirting with them. And I did strike up a brief conversation with a duder that works at Green Shift who had a stack of about 10 bootlegs in his hands.

The best part of the whole experience happened in the vendor room. I was stuck behind somebody taking a picture of a duder in a costume when I looked a row over at this female mannequin in a red corset. My timing couldn’t have been better. I had looked just in time to see this really tall guy with glasses and long black hair hug the dang thing.

First, he looked around really timidly to see if anyone was paying attention then he snuck his arm around the waist of the mannequin. And with this really sad look on his face, he went ahead and put his other arm around it and full on hugged the lady mannequin. Finally, he let go and shuffled off looking very defeated.

So other than the shopping, I think my attendance of Screamfest was a complete bust. Maybe if I had gone for the entire three days and dedicated one of them to standing in a dang line, I might be more satisfied. Having some autographs or a photo of me standing with some horror movie legend might improve my outlook on conventions. I also think I’d have more fun playing vendor. Who knows, folks, perhaps you’ll see a Doomed Moviethon booth one day at some random horror con. Whoa.

My lamest Halloween costume occurred in 1st grade… Oh God, how I wish that a picture of me in my shame existed but alas, my parents probably knew that I would just use it against them later. So with no photographic evidence in my possession, I’ll just have to do my best to describe the awfulness for you. Attributing the whole incident to parental apathy is tempting but knowing my history with last minute science projects and hastily written book reports, my guess is that fateful morning probably went down something like this:

Me: “Mom, I need a costume for school today!”

Mom: “You said you didn’t want to dress up.”

Me: “I never said that. Why would I say that?”

Mom: [sighs] “Okay fine, let’s see what we can throw together.”

My mom and dad had dressed up as a Little Red Riding Hood and the Lumberjack to a Halloween party a few years prior so I ended up with my mom’s hooded red cape. Now here’s where my memory goes fuzzy. I keep thinking that she let me wear my Star Wars pajamas under the cape but I probably just had on a sweatshirt and slacks. I can’t quite remember that part.

This was almost my entire costume right there but I insisted on some makeup. With the clock ticking and the school bus approaching, my mom grabbed her brightest and reddest lipstick and… I swear that this is true… drew these huge red circles around my eyes in Revlon. With the hood pulled over my head and my red eyeholes staring out, I looked like, fuck, I don’t know what I was supposed to be. Mom said I was a ghoul. Okay, good enough. Time for school.

The second I set foot on the bus, the confusion broke out. Nobody had a dang clue what I was dressed as. One kid insisted that I was Superman. This infuriated me. Does Superman have horrifying red circles around his eyes? No! How could they not know I was a ghoul? Another smartass asked me what a ghoul was. Of course, I didn’t know what one was either so I just said it was a monster and rolled my eyes at the idiocy of the question.

It only took me a few minutes after class started to convince the teacher to let me go to the restroom. Once there, I washed the lipstick off my face. THIS IS NOT AN EASY THING TO DO. I came back to class with the cape folded up in a ball and stashed it in my backpack. Nobody even remembered that I had been wearing a costume. I spent the rest of the day gloomily staring at other kids’ store bought getups.

Around this time of year, I do all that I can to stay in a Halloween frame of mind. Sure, I watch horror movies just about every single day year round but this is the one month of the year when damn near everybody is on my side. A thread over at Hipinion about terrifying moments from films that have haunted us for years inspired me to do a little snooping around in my childhood for the things that kept me awake at night, surrounded by a cadre of stuffed animal guardians.

As a kid, the 80s horror-themed TV show, Tales From The Darkside, freaked me out. Hell, even the introduction was so creepy that I could hardly stand it. The episode that got to me the most was “Monsters In My Room”. To my 9-year-old mind, this was pure horror. I remember wanting to hide my eyes but also being completely exhilarated by my fear. The surreal nature of this episode really stuck with me over the years and it was the first episode that came to mind when discussions of this show came up on the webboard.

Now, I look at it and I still get the ghost of a childhood chill but the moment that half-assed Boogey Man is revealed in the middle of the episode, I’m kind of embarrassed that I was ever even remotely scared of this shit. On the bright side, the atmosphere of this episode is fantastic. The eerie blue lighting of the nighttime bedroom, the creepy soundtrack, and the tight editing are all perfectly tuned to convey the tone. Plus, you gotta love that saw blade.

Mining your childhood for scary moments from films and childhood is going to turn up some pretty silly stuff, like “Monsters In My Room”. The things that traumatized us as children usually turn out to be pretty innocuous once you’re full grown. Now, the most uncomfortable and horrifying part of this episode is Biff, the evil stepdad. Hey, cut the guy some slack, he was in ‘Nam.

Little Seth Green praying for a role in Can’t Hardly Wait. Fo shizzle.

The less we see of the Boogey Man, the better.

This creepy stepdad’s got “bad touch” written all over him.

Don’t go to the bathroom.

Tales From The Darkside - Introduction

“Monsters In My Room” Part 1

“Monsters In My Room” Part 2