CONVENTION REPORT! Monster Mania, May 19th - May 21st. 2006 (Cherry Hill, NJ)

CONVENTION REPORT! Monster Mania, May 19th – May 21st. 2006 (Cherry Hill, NJ)

May 22, 2006

Monster Mania, May 19th – May 21st. 2006 (Cherry Hill, NJ)

Report and write-up by Robg. with photographs by Robg., Ian and Cynthia Longo.

THE PANELS:

FULL MOON’s Charles Band kicked off the first panel began around 2pm in the main ballroom on Saturday, May 20th of the 5th Monster Mania convention. He brought along with him 3 original “stunt” dolls- 2 from the ‘Puppet Master’ series, as well as one doll from ‘Doll Graveyard’ and started off the show by introducing a number of entertaining clips from the Full Moon archives… (continued…)

First up, we were treated to an “Opening Mega Montage”, which showed clips from ALL of the FULL MOON features of both past and present, along with clips from everything Charles Band has been a part of including Troll, Ghoulies, and Dolls. This presentation reminded me just how many FULL MOON features were a huge part of my young life… (continued…)

Charles then treated us to the trailer for his latest feature ‘THE GINGERDEAD MAN’, which features crazed actor Gary Busey as a killer cookie. He shared a few entertaining Busey stories with us, such as how he had to film each individual line separetly, and also how Busey showed up with an acoustic guitar and played songs for an hour before recording his voice over session. (Which he supposedly banged out in 20 minutes to keep a date with a girl.) (continued…)

Tim Thomerson joined Charles on the stage for a bit. When asked, Tim names ‘Trancers 2’ as one of his favorite jobs to work on, and Helen Hunt as one of his favorite co-stars from the FULL MOON days. Charles mentioned that he’d like to do a ‘DOLLMAN 2′ with Tim soon, to which Tim replied, “How ’bout ‘DOLLMAN VS. JACK DETH’. I could kick my own ass!” After being egged on by Charles, Tim eventually launched into his Charles Bronson imitation. He apparently was a stand up comic for years before getting into acting. The crowd ate this part of the panel up! (continued…)

The next portion of the panel was a “Stars Of FULL MOON” segment. We were shown a montage video of clips from various FULL MOON productions to see early acting performances by Demi Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Bill Maher, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lance Henriksen, Sherilyn Fenn, Mariska Hargitay, Kelly Preston, Helen Hunt and William Shatner. Charles then invited both Bill Moseley and Jeffrey Combs to the stage… (continued…)

Bill shared a few funny stories about working with Charles on ‘CRASH AND BURN’, and Jeffrey named ‘DR. MORDRID’ (a film Charles Band co-directed with his father Albert) as his favorite FULL MOON experience. Charles & Jeff mentioned that they have plans to make a ‘DR. MORDRID 2’ very soon. Charles also mentioned that both of these guys will be cameoing in his new film ‘THE EVIL BONG’, with Tommy Chong in the lead! (continued…)

Charles then called upon volunteers from the audience to act out a scene he played to direct live on stage. He needed “a hot chick”, “a GQ looking dude” and “a monster”. Below are his auditions for the “GQ guy”, which ended up going to the middle fellow… (continued…)

Charles explained that he does this on his FULL MOON ROADSHOW, but with a fully designed stage, music, lights and props. In the scene, the “hot girl” is chained up, her “GQ boyfriend” is trying to save her, and gets thrown aside by “the monster.” It was really fun to watch this all play out live on stage, and I can only imagine how cool it isn’t during his regular Full Moon Roadshow! (continued…)

Charles concluded his panel with an auction for 3 exclusive “stunt” dolls from previous Full Moon productions. He brought with him ‘Jester’ and ‘Pinhead’ from ‘PUPPET MASTER’ and a doll from ‘DOLL GRAVEYARD’.

KNB make-up effects artist Greg Nicotero was on hand to show a few clips, which included demo reels from the companies work from 2006, 2003, and 2002, as well as featurettes on the making of Narnia and a cool feature on body creation. He explained that the “bodies” are made with silicone and the one in the demo reel was from the movie ‘Bad Boys 2’, but was later re-used in the Masters Of Horror episode ‘Heckel’s Tale’. Of all the filmmakers he’s worked with, he’d really like to work with Romero again, whom he says is pitching a “zombie” television series. (Someone get Robert Kirkman, writer of the comic “The Walking Dead” on board!) (continued…)

Greg mentioned how he has yet to meet Rob Bottin. He was finishing up a “gag” on Spider-Man 3 a few days ago, and supposedly had just missed Rob Bottin by a day. Rob had brought a kid from the “Make A Wish” foundation to the set to meet Spider-Man. He also told a story about working with Steven Spielberg on ‘Amistad’, and how he was embarrassed to ask to get his ‘JAWS’ script signed. Deep down, Greg is still as big a fan of the genre as the rest of us.

At the KNB table, Greg Nicotero brought actual props from ‘Narnia’, ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ (2006), ‘Sin City’ and ‘Land Of the Dead’. Take a look at the detail in these suckers!!!

Upstairs, Jeffrey Combs introduces the screening of ‘Re-Animator’!!!

Andrew Divoff (The Wishmaster) and Richard Brooker (Jason, Friday 3) sit in on the “Men Behind the Mask and Make-up” panel…

Richard Brooker and Tony Todd (Candyman).

George A. Romero during his panel.

One of the highlights of the weekend was seeing fan fave actor Lance Henriksen at Monster Mania. He sat down with MM’s host David Hagen to a packed house. When asked by an audience member, “When are we going to see more of Frank Black?” Lance replied, “I think you’ll see him in a ‘MILLENNIUM’ movie. That’s what they’re talking about right now.” He went on to talk about his experiences on ‘Millennium’ and how he loves the character of Frank Black, despite originally being hesitant to work in television. (continued…)

Lance talked a lot about his early career and about James Cameron, telling stories of how he’d show up to meetings AS the terminator. He mentioned a ‘NEAR DARK’ prequel, which is something him and Bill Paxton would love to do. (Even though there’s a rumored ‘Near Dark’ remake on the way.) Him and Bill are very interested in the idea of telling the story of how those characters became vampires. You would see his character ‘Jesse’ in the Civil War and Bill’s character ‘Severen’ become a vampire in the old West. Lance claims he “liked” Alien Vs. Predator, but wished he had a bit more screen time in it. He just shot two back-to-back ‘Pumpkinhead’ sequels playing the “ghost” of his original character Ed Harley. He says the reason he did it is because “the scripts are dynamite” and that “the flaws from the 1st one were taken care of in these two films.” Very interesting, indeed. He admits that in his career, he finds playing the villain is far more fun!

Another highlight for fans was seeing a number of the original ‘HELLRAISER’ cenobites together on stage for this panel. On hand (from left to right) were Simon Bamford (“Butterball” cenobite), Peter Atkins (Writer Hellraiser’s 1-4, “Barbie” Cenobite), Doug Bradley (Pinhead), Barbie Wilde (“Female” cenobite), Greg J. Tunnicliffe (FX, “Bound” cenobite), and Nicolas Vince (“Chatterer” cenobite). Monster Mania’s Dave Hagen started the panel off by saying, “We have on stage all the best elements of the Hellraiser movies, between the writer, the cenobites and FX artist. What do we have to do to get THIS group to make another Hellraiser movie?” Huge applause from the audience at this suggestion. And then Peter Atkins replied, “Well, we’d love to do one, but they (Dimension films) don’t give a shit!” Bummer!