World Horror Convention 2008 Report
By Jennifer Caress
A short reenactment of the same conversation I heard 4 million times this past weekend:
“Are you a zombie person?”
“Not really. I like a good vampire tale, but I won’t say no to werewolves.”
“Me, I’m all about the psychological terror. Give me a knife and a dark place any day.”
“I like all of those things, too, if they are done right. But for me it all comes back to the zombie: nothing better, as far as I am concerned.”
And I loved every single time I either had or overheard this conversation. Why? Because I was amongst my own!
Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Jennifer Caress and I am the author of the Perverted Realities series. I attended the World Horror Convention this year as a dealer (read: publicity whore) but was able to participate as a student, teacher, reviewer, and friend.
This year the annual World Horror Convention took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, from March 27th thru March 30th. Since this was my first convention I have nothing to compare it to, but from what others have told me the WHC is a smaller, more intimate convention, where the main focus is on books.
Perfect!
My brother, Scott Caress, lives in Salt Lake City and graciously cashed in his vacation time to attend the convention with me and help out. What a guy!
The convention took place on the second and third floors of the Radisson Hotel; the second floor was for panels, the Bram Stoker awards, ceremonies, and the dealer’s room. The third floor was for the film festival, where indie horror films were shown from 8 A.M. until 10 P.M. It was here that I was able to see, for the first time, the ‘80’s film, Slime City (read review).
The Film Room
If you have never seen this hard-to-find gem, I highly recommend you hunt it down. (Here, I’ll help you– http://slimeguy.com/slimecity.html) I believe that it falls with a booming thud into the beloved “so bad it’s good” category. Scott and I walked into the showing of this movie late, but excused ourselves and sat down in the middle row, eager to watch yet another independent horror film. The audience was maybe 12 people full so it was an intimate setting. Watching the choppy editing, cheap applied-in-the-dark makeup, and the taken-too-serious acting was fun. So fun, in fact, that one audience member couldn’t hold it in anymore and snickered. That set someone else off who let escape a small chuckle. From there the dominos fell rather quickly and soon we were all howling with laughter at each unintentionally horrific, unintentionally hilarious turn. By the time the credits rolled we all had tears streaming down our faces and were doing our best to hold one another up.
The host of the festival turned on the lights and walked to the front of the room. He was glad we all liked the film, he said, because we had a special guest with us. Sitting in the back row, the entire time, was Robert Sabin, the lead actor of the film.
The laughing abruptly stopped. Awkwardness ensued.
Sabin seemed to take it well, though, and answered questions from the audience for a few minutes. As he left he promised he would be at the convention for the next days with signed DVD copies. Perhaps he wasn’t as in on the joke as we had hoped because we never saw him again. And we really, really, looked, too. Damn it.
During one of the panels, I met and started talking with writer/direct Robert Pratten (www.zenfilms.com). He told me that his newest film, Mindflesh, would be showing right after the panel. I was there!
This film is a disturbed, sexual, psychological nightmare that never allows hope to come through. I highly recommend it. The director spoke openly about the film having a low budget and how he had to learn to do the effects by himself. I think we can all respect a low budget production, yes? The marvelous thing about this movie is that the lack of funds never shows. To me it looked like a big production!
However my favorite aspect to Mindflesh is the pacing. It is never choppy, no cheap “jump out” scares are used, and never does the film drag on, boring the viewer into submission. For me the entire movie was perfectly paced. It was also the type of film that stays with each individual viewer for a long, long time.
During the Bram Stoker Awards, those who were not nominated (injustice, I cry!) were treated to the Top Tabloid Witch film festival (http://www.tabloidwitch.com/), which consisted of about 20 short horror films. Some were great, some were good, and a few assaulted my eyes…and not in a good way. Night of the Hell Hamsters was one that sticks out in my mind, mostly because it was silly horror, but it was made by actual talent. The actors were fantastic, the directing was award-worthy, and the film was in on the joke.
The entire film festival showed short horror films that ranged from brilliant, to interesting, to total crap—but that is the fun of a short horror film festival as far as I am concerned!
The Panels
Panels were a continuous part of the convention; beginning from first thing in the morning until about 6 P.M. every night. For those of you who don’t know, a panel is basically a structured conversation where three or four people sit in front with microphones and engage in a discussion. There is often a moderator to make sure all panel members get their fair share of speaking time, and to make sure the conversation stays on topic. Once the panel members state their view point on the subject matter there is often a Q & A session between audience and panel members, or the panel invites the audience to join in and give their opinion.
Some of the panels at this year’s convention were Making Lovecraft Accessible to the 21st Century, Screenwriting 101, Writing Horror Video Games, Setting Up and Managing a Literary Estate, The Myth of Writer’s Block, and How Music Can Help You Write.
Because I was working a dealer’s table I wasn’t able to attend all of the panels, but my two table companions did share the table watch so that we were each able to participate in the panels that interested us the most. Personally, I found the Setting Up and Managing a Literary Estate panel to be the most profound. I had no idea that our copyrights need to be willed to specific people after our death, or else they get tangled in the endless void that is probate. Scary!
All people who signed up to attend the convention were able to sign up to be on a panel. I opted not to be on a panel because it was my first convention and I wasn’t sure what to expect just from the dealer’s table. But next year, maybe?
The Parties!
For me, the greatest networking came from the nightly parties, and I’m not just saying that because of the free alcohol.
But seriously, free alcohol!
Both Leisure Books and Dark Arts Books were generous enough to throw parties for us, and both were lovely enough to include free alcohol. These parties would generally end around 4 A.M. when new parties would kick up in private rooms.
After a long day of selling, talking, and signing, many of the writers, editors, publishers, and readers would gather at these parties to drink and relax. It is here that I found we were all friends, even if we hadn’t met yet. All it took was a smile and handshake before it was official- we are now long lost buddies, never to lose touch again!
Honestly, it was this unity that I treasured the most. We are all part of the same genre, we all love reading, writing, and late night B movies. It didn’t matter that he is a vampire person or that she is a zombie person. It didn’t matter if he is a best-seller and she hasn’t been published yet. Under those Salt Lake City nights we were all equal. There were no wallflowers, there were no “geeks”, and there wasn’t a single soul that wasn’t invited into the conversations that flowed so smoothly.
I always thought that conventions looked like fun, and they are. They are also a lot of hard work and a lot of money. But I can’t really put a price on such an experience- where, for once in my life, I was normal. Absent from the convention were the dreaded cliques and any superficial hierarchy. There were times when we actually tried to “out-geek” one another. Beautiful!
I came home with a ton of great new horror books, a million business cards, a zillion Myspace addresses, and more treasured memories than I can count. Forgive my sappiness, but ultimately, my World Horror Convention experience was, as one committee member put it, a family reunion; one that I will actually look forward to attending from now on.
Visit our special correspondent Jennifer Caress on Myspace!
Visit the official site of The World Horror Convention!
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