June 21, 2005

Fangoria’s Weekend Of Horrors, DAY TWO – Sun. June 5th, 2005 (Burbank, California) – by Rob G

One of the funnest parts of any convention experience is taking a walk through the dealer’s room. You never know what out-of-print goodies you’re going to find. Or you may stumble upon a DVD for a long lost film you have fond memories of. Or you may see a slew of awesome props from old productions. Or you may bump into some old friends that you always end up seeing at these cons. One way or another, the below pictures represent a walk through the vendors room, and all the cool props you might see along the way.

The first panel of the day was for upcoming ghost flick, ‘BOO’ from the producer’s of ‘DOG SOLDIERS’. On hand to talk about the film was producer David Allen, star and fan fave Dee Wallace Stone (The Howling), composer Alan (Halloween series) Howarth and writer (and sometimes Fango contributor) Anthony Ferrante. We were treated to a 5 minute scene from the film of this spookfest and unlike a lot of these Japanese remakes as of late, this looked scary! The usage of practical effects is a huge bonus, as the one scene we screened involved a recently deceased dog re-animating itself. (Very reminiscent of Rob Bottin’s eFX on John Carpenter’s The Thing) Writer Anthony Ferrante says the main difference between this and the other dozen ghost pictures out there now is that this one was written back in 1999 and doesn’t shy away from the art of the subtle scare, using the build up of suspense as a major plot device. Sure enough, the clip we saw was impressive and with the “killer” score by Alan Howarth, this looks like one movie to definitely be on the look out for. Dee Wallace became involved from the persistence of writer Anthony Ferrante and it’s a good thing too, because Dee looks absolutely fabulous as always. (And she’s pretty darned sweet too!) David Allen spoke briefly about ‘Dog Soldiers 2’ and said that they’re hoping to have ‘Robert Patrick’ and ‘Tom Jane’ on for the project. That would be pretty darned cool! At the end of the panel, most of the ‘BOO’ crew stuck around and signed theatrical one-sheets for the audience.

Day two of the convention called for another ‘DEVIL’S REJECTS’ panel. This time with actor’s Sid Haig, Bill Mosely, and Steve Railsback. Bill and Steve both compared their working experience’s with Rob Zombie to that of Tobe Hooper. Bill worked with Tobe on ‘Texas Chainsaw 2’ and Steve on ‘Lifeforce’. Steve went into detail with the audience on how difficult it was to prepare for the role of Ed Gein in the film of the same name. Without Rob Zombie there this time, these folks were able to talk about the other wonderful work they’ve done in the past.

Walking around the dealer’s room, you never know what you’ll find or who you’ll run into. Lucky for me, I ran into the lovely Jill from Lix T-Shirts. If you haven’t been to her site yet or picked up her awesome T-Shirts at any of the cons, then go ahead and treat yourself now. www.LixOnLine.com. Go ahead, you’ve earned it. Across from Jill’s table, I ran into… screaming zombies?

One of the next panels was for the upcoming film, ‘TAMARA’ from writer/creator Jeffrey Reddick (far left); creator of ‘FINAL DESTINATION’. He was joined by director Jeremy Haft and two cast members of the film. We were treated to a scene of the film in which the title character, Tamara convinces one of the teenagers responsible for her death to “hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil” by cutting off his ear, tongue and eye. Pretty brutal stuff! Essentially, as Jeffrey Reddick explains it, ‘Carrie’ is one of his all time favorite movies. What if the prom scene of ‘Carrie’ happened at the beginning of the film and we got to see an entire movie about her revenge. That’s pretty much what ‘Tamara’ is like, except that Tamara comes back as a super hot girl rather then the geek everyone once picked on. Overall, an interesting premise and a promising new film.

Next up was Part Two of the ‘FRIDAY THE 13TH’ panel, this time with various directors of the series. From left to right, we had Adam (Jason Goes To Hell) Marcus, John (Part VII) Buechler, Tom (Part VI) McLoughlin, Joseph (Part IV) Zito, and author Peter Bracke moderating for a second day in a row. The surprise visitor was none other then Stu Charno from ‘Friday Part 2’, who jumped up on stage, took a photograph of the audience and pointed to his “I’m Still Alive” T-Shirt. It was very interesting to hear the different approaches from each director towards their entry in the series and it seems a lot of these guys are big fans of each others work. For example, Joe Zito admitted to loving Tom’s film (Part 6), and Adam Marcus was thrilled to share the same stage with the directors that influenced him when it came time for his Jason pic. Joe talks a bit about the talented group that was on board for his film, including Corey Feldman and of course… Crispin Glover; whose “dance” scene was an improvision on his part. “That was all Crispin. That was a dance he would do in clubs.” John Buechler mentioned how disappointed he was with the absence of Kane Hodder from ‘Freddy Vs. Jason’. “For me, it’s personal. Yeah, I saw it, and it was good. But Kane should’ve been in that movie. And he would’ve brought so much more to the character.” Let’s not forget, John’s the one who first had Kane hop on board as Jason with Part 7. They are all looking forward to what future director’s might bring to the series, and openly admit to being really excited by the rumors of Quentin Tarantino’s involvement, even though those rumors turned out to be false. A fantastic panel from a group of fantastic directors.

I caught up with another Icons Of Fright past interviewee, Peter Bracke, author of ‘Crystal Lake Memories’ shortly after the Friday panel. Good thing I had my Jason T-Shirt on!

No one is better at working a crowd than Bruce Campbell. And this afternoon was no exception. He came out with a handful of posters to his latest film ‘The Man With The Screaming Brain’. “How many of these other losers are charging you for their autographs! I’m the only guest that’s gonna give you stuff for free! Who spent the most money here?” Immediately, the crowd started shouting out different numbers as to how much they spent over the course of the weekend. “$2000, Bruce!” “$2000? What’d you spend $2000 on, sir.” “An Evil Dead guitar!” Bruce throws this fan a skeptical look … “Come on up here. Let me see that. We’re going to have us a little unplugged session here folks.” The guy with the Evil Dead guitar rightfully earns himself a free poster. “Who else in here deserves a poster!?” A little boy right behind me raises his hand. “I do, because Evil Dead was the first movie I ever saw.” Again, with a skeptical look, Bruce says …”Evil Dead was the first movie you ever saw? … How old are you?” “I’m 9.” “Are those you’re parents sitting right next to you? Because… they should be in jail! But come on up here!” …

I could go on and on with the back and forth banter between Bruce and his fans. But instead we’ll cut to the main questions. On Bubba Nosferatu? “The DVD did really well for MGM, so I think we’ll get to do another one. But Sony just bought MGM, so I guess when everyone figures out whose desk is whose, we’ll do it.” On the Evil Dead remake? “Well, I can tell you it’ll be scary. And… that’s it. It’ll be scary. I don’t know. I may be in it as the old guy at the store that tells these kids, ‘Ya know, you shouldn’t go out into those woods. …I would know!’ Speaking of, who would you wanna see in that movie? I say Ashton Kutcher.” The audience boo’s. “Oh, come on. Wouldn’t you want to see him covered in blood for an hour and a half? Yeah, pal. You’re punked!” On Evil Dead 4? “Gee, let’s call up Sam and find out. Oh, he says he’s working on this little film called Spider-Man 3. So, sometime after that… Then sure, we’ll make it.” On Spider-Man 3? “Well, in the first one I named him. In the second one, I defeated Spider-Man. Let’s be very clear about that. So, in the third I’m just going to be Spider-man. No, honestly I don’t know yet, but I’m sure my role will be just as important as it was in the first two.” After a barrage of questions, Bruce went to the side of the stage and signed autographs for fans. Apparently, no pictures were allowed at his table, but I still managed to get this one pic below.

Tony Todd (Candyman) stopped by for a panel with director Derek Wan to promote their latest project ‘Shadow: Dead Riot’. Tony mentioned that there is talk of another Candyman film, but nothing concrete yet. “There’s talk of a Vs film.” Could he be referring to Robert Englund’s wishful thinking of pitting Freddy Krueger against the Candyman? Tony joked around about taking on Chucky, but it was a joke! Also, from what I understand (unless I heard wrong), he will NOT be in ‘Final Destination 3’, which is currently filming in Vancouver. He will however be appearing in ‘Hatchet’ alongside Kane Hodder, Robert Englund, and Joshua Leonard.

While ROGUE pictures set up a booth to promote the new ‘SEED OF CHUCKY’ DVD and give out promotional shirts, actress Jennifer Tilly and writer/director Don Mancini took the stage for the next panel. Jennifer looked amazing in person and was one of my main motivations for flying out to California for this event. Both her and Don were very playful on stage and shared plenty of stories on what went on behind the scenes of ‘Seed Of Chucky’. John Waters’ was an openly huge fan of the ‘Child’s Play’ films and requested a death scene in one of the sequels! They both quickly became aware of John’s sick sense of humor as he would send both Jennifer and Don graphic e-mails every single day, which Don said, “the type of stuff I can’t even describe to you guys out loud.” Jennifer added, “Anytime I opened John’s e-mails, I’d get a dozen computer virus'” All kidding aside, both of them would be open to another Chucky outing, given time and the right story. Don was asked about the potential of a Vs film. “It’s enough having all these characters now like Tiffany and Glen with Chucky, that I could probably get away with one more film before resorting to the Vs movie.” Audiences asked if it would be ‘Chucky Vs Leprechaun’. “That seems kind of obvious. I don’t know. I think it’d be way more interesting to have Chucky up against someone like Freddy, because it’d be really fun to write all that dialogue.” Overall, an excellent panel. We were reminded again that if we want to see “more” of Chucky… to pick up the DVD.

And that was my Fango experience. My guest and I bailed after the Jennifer Tilly and Don Mancini autograph session and missed Tobe Hooper’s panel and the ‘SAW 2’ panel. Egh, can’t be there for everything, now can ya? See you next convention! – Rob G

Have you checked out DAY ONE of the Fango con? Featuring exclusive photos of Rob Zombie, Sherri Moon Zombie, Sid Haig, Bill Mosely, Sean Cunningham, Adrienne King, Ashley Laurence, Robert Englund, Wes Craven, Lucky Mckee, Kelly Stables and many more!!!