The show's sponsor and titular source of name, HorrorHound Magazine, delivered a guest list this time that was absolutely phenomenal and the size of the crowds attending each day was a strong indication of that. Some of the notable guests responsible for attracting such a huge throng to Indianapolis included: George Romero, Clive Barker, Elvira, Sid Haig, Tom Noonan, Doug Bradley, Simon Bamford, Greg Nicotero, Ken Foree, Mike Christopher, Tom Savini, Joe Bob Briggs, Danny Roebuck (as Dr. Shocker), and many, many more! In fact, there were so many great guests present that I'm simply not going to list all of them here: click HERE for a complete registry of guests in attendance or click on any one of the individual names above for more information on that particular guest.
Also included in the festivities was a record-setting assembly of Media Horror Hosts: 83 as reported by author, drive-in enthusiast and host of Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater and Monstervision, Joe Bob Briggs via his Twitter page. The gathering of so many macabre emcees was done in tribute to the late Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira, television's first horror host. It really helped set the tone of the show seeing so many in their outrageous, inventive and darkly-fantastic costumes throughout the weekend. After all, how many times do you get an opportunity to see a werewolf at a urinal?
A staple of the show, the HMA.net Mask-Fest was bigger and better than ever this time with some fantastic, frightening and phantasmagorical examples of the craft on display. And, as per previous iterations, the film festival, guest panels, vendor areas with incredible memorabilia galore and the after hours parties and gatherings provided a lot of additional entertainment value for the price: master of the hula hoops, Alexander J. Hamilton, is a show unto himself.
A special inclusion and highlight of the weekend was the debut presentation of the uncut work print for Clive Barker's Nightbreed. Never before publicly viewed by an audience, this showing was preceded by a well-deserved HorrorHound Magazine lifetime achievement award presentation to Mr. Barker; the award was offered to him by an iconic representation of one of Barker's most famous characters, Pinhead, dressed and made up in full cenobitic regalia and bowing in deference and respect to the famed author, artist and filmmaker who had created him. This was followed by a Q& A session, enjoyably emceed by HorrorHound writer Jessica Dwyer, who introduced and oversaw the entire portion preceding the film's showing. The panel was comprised of Clive Barker, Doug Bradley, Simon Bamford, Ashley Laurence and John Harrison and included Mr. Barker inviting the audience to engage in a dialogue on the modern state of literary horror. After the lively Q&A session, the film was presented to an anticipatory and appreciative audience.
At present, Morgan Creek, the studio that owns the rights to the footage, has no plans to follow through with a DVD release of the completed version of the uncut project, so if you would like to help Mr. Barker and company demonstrate to Morgan Creek that there is indeed sufficient interest to support such a release, email: philandsarah@clivebarker.info or send a Tweet via Twitter to @philandsara. More information, including the history behind the footage's discovery is available on Clive Barker's Official Site.
The majority of attendees and guests that I spoke to both during the convention and afterwards reported similar favorable experiences to that of myself, but I've also seen a handful of complaints posted by individuals on various forums that it was too crowded and poorly organized, etc. The turnout was huge and was accompanied by some problems inherent with that, but those issues were addressed and dealt with in as reasonable a fashion as could be expected of the organizers and volunteer staff and I would suspect, comparing my experience this time to those in the past, that it was most likely a case where the actual number of attendees far exceeded the expectations projected by advance sales and other indicators; the venue has always sufficed at previous shows. I'm sure it impacted individuals most who only attended for one or two days of the show, and, sadly, no experience could reasonably be expected to be flawless and without incidents, but by-and-large I would rate the experience an overall success:
* * * * */5
Until Monday...
-B
Until Monday...
-B
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