This weekend, northern California will get another opportunity to meet the people that make the stuff we like reality as Wizard World rolls into our state capital. Wizard World gets round like no other convention I've looked into; even now, half way through the year, there are ten more weekends already listed on their site, all in different cities and states. And you would't be able to pull off that kind of schedule if you weren't doing something right. But is there anything there for horror fans?
It's true, there are a lot of actors known for their sci-fi and action contributions, but with ticket prices being about double what they were for Sinister Creature Con, I decided to do some digging before recommending that people check it out. I found some pretty cool stuff in the different guest's histories, some less obvious than others.
Okay, well first off I heard about this convention from an very excited Impostor, who exclaimed that there were going to be four cast members from his favorite show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer there. Not the slayer herself, but Spike (James Masters), Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), Xander (Nicholas Brendon), and Anya (Emma Caulfield), which was enough motivation for him. Other familiar names on the roster were Adrienne Barbeau, Kate Beckinsale, Edward James Olmos, Lou Ferrigno, Val Kilmer. I started to wonder... Lots of actors have horror movies in their past somewhere, and non of these names were really jumping out at me except for the obvious ones. I decided to start my digging with Val Kilmer, confident I'd at least find something.
Of course! How could I have forgotten about Twixt?? But now, there was another familiar face on this cover. How old could Elle Fanning have been when this was filmed? The cover isn't great, but this I really enjoyed this ghost story.
We've all seen and hated Michael Rooker in The Walking Dead, but how many people are going to bring their copy of Slither to get autographed? Well if you do, you might also consider getting Sean Gunn to sign that bad boy, as both of these gents will be guests at the convention.
Next I decided to look into a name that was completely new to me. That name was Steve Blum (No, Google, I didn't mean Blumhouse), a voice actor with hundreds of credits to his name. Looking through the list, I came across Blood: The Last Vampire, a horror anime from 2000.
And the more I see the more I want to watch this. But I wanted to make things more interesting, so I looked up Jon Heder, who I must always be reminded is the guy who played Napoleon Dynamite.
I was kind of bummed out when the closest things to horror I could find were Monster House and Ghost Team (not that there's anything wrong with Monster House...), but he is listed as a producer in a short that definitely caught my attention.
The Visitant is a short film that breaks the Doug Jones curse; he's back in a full-body monster prosthetic and gets to put his long limbs to good use. Read up about the short at Dead Central and stream it here.
For those of us living a substantial distance away from Los Angeles don't get opportunities like Wizard World Comic Con too often. The chance to meet our adored actors and filmmakers require long drives, good timing and lots of saving. So when horror (and horror related) conventions come to our neck of the state, we should really show them the love and support that will make them want to come back. And that's why I think we should all make an effort to make it out to Wizard World Sacramento this weekend! Or one of the other ten dates, location depending. Read all about the con at WizardWorld.com.
-Huntress
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