Colorado Horror Con & Halloween Film Festival 2015 Recap

Written by Scotty

There are sometimes my friends amaze me still, and when I continue to find out that Halloween is their favorite holiday of the year, my heart just grows a little bit bigger.  It just seems like this is a dirty little secret that people do not want others to know, but over the past couple of years, Halloween has been making itself more known, especially in the retail industry.  With that said, a great event took place this Halloween weekend that has left me beside myself.

Colorado Horror Con opened its doors on October 30th and did not leave any questions unanswered for me on what I should be doing this year.  Walking in and finding several of my favorite actors, actresses and artists on hand, well, this is my Christmas and birthday combined.  With actresses Lynn Lowry, Eileen Dietz and Camille Keaton, I was most excited to meet Debbie Rochon who had a great part in The Wrath of the Crows and when I started looking into the rest of her two hundred plus credits, I saw that I have several of her movies and had no idea.

When shooting the breeze with Debbie, I was amazed to find out what her favorite horror movie turned out to be…The Shining.  Well, there you have it and I know that I am no longer crazy when insisting that all of my friends watch this movie since it captured so many people’s hearts and imaginations over the years.  Just being able to talk with this legend made my weekend complete.  She is so grateful for her fans and will continue to try and bring her a game to the screen as long as she can.  She is also traveling around to the film festivals and showing her new movie, Model Hunger where she has stepped behind the camera for her first directing gig.  Definitely a movie to check out when it makes it to theaters next year, you will not be disappointed.

Then I had the pleasure of chatting with Zack Ward about the industry, since he is one of the few actors that my generation has seen grow up in front of our very eyes.  Being a horror fan himself, Zack has been able to land some roles in strong movies and now he is taking control of some of his future works.  Writing a couple of new films and putting on the producer hat, he is very versatile in his craft and that is what makes him one of the good ones to follow as time goes on, you never know what he will be able to amaze you with next.  

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Then this happened out of the blue thanks to Jonathan Tiersten, but Andrew Divoff, that’s right I got to chat with the Djinn from Wishmaster.  This was just an honor and I knew a couple of things that he has done in the past, but we mainly just talked about how the industry has worked over the years, what he has been up to in his down time and one of my favorite subjects, actors and accents.  Andrew speaks eight different languages and how would you ever know that by just talking to him.  I wish I could go back and ask him a couple more questions just about that, but he did answer my main one about it very well.  A cool guy and I am honored that he gave me the time to just chat it up for a couple of minutes.

Then we had the artists and wow, I had no idea what the story behind Basil Gogos was before the con, but I got a little bit of the insight.  He was the artist that did all of the Famous Monster covers since the 1960’s.  Looking through his portfolio, it is amazing to see the work he had done over the years and how lifelike most of the characters and monsters he created back then actually look.  I had to pick up a Nosferatu and Vincent Price from him, these were just too good to pass up on.  Not a bad way to get a good history lesson from my friends about what I have been missing out on for several years now.

It is hard to pass up on everyone else and I got to reconnect with from a couple staff members to the usual suspects that I like to hang out with.  Robert Elrod was there and I got my education from him and besides being a very talented artist, he knows a lot more about the art game than I do and I will just have to keep my ears open when he is telling stories, and he even held a large boa constrictor, so I know he has little fear.  Kevin Gentilcore was also in attendance and we just always to find common ground for our discussions which always tend to end up on drinking for some reason.  Stan Yan was also in the house and just doing what he does best, zombifying the guests and just having a good time.  Jeff Herndon and Todd Jones were also there, just having a great time and if you ever get a chance to see how these two interact with each other, it is almost worth the price of admission, but they are both also very good in their trade, Jeff as a crazy good artist and Todd as a crazy good writer and I hope Todd is able to get his Christmas story off the ground, because it sounds epic!

I know I am missing several people and I apologize, but there was just so much cool stuff going on that made this weekend just glorious for all in attendance.  In reality, this is fun for the whole family and I am extremely happy that I made it out.  Connecting with old friends, making some new ones and finding a common interest to connect on is what a convention is supposed to do and Colorado Horror Con delivered just that.  A great time had by all.  With the people that have terrified your dreams in film to battling your fears in person with Boa’s being shown and even silicone apparel designed to look like human skin being worn, it is hard to walk away without a smile on your face.  I cannot wait to see what we have to look forward to next year!

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