Flashback Weekend 2014

I haven't written anything here in a long time, but I was asked by a reader (I hesitate to say fan) to recount my experiences at Flashback Weekend 2014. Not sure where to begin, I've never written a con recap post before.

Let me just say that from top to bottom, Flashback was a way better con than Fandomfest. I've been two Fandomfest 2012 and Fandomfest 2013. I had fun, but more because of the celebrities and vendors than the actual way the event was run and the people in charge. 2013 was the last straw and I decided to look for somewhere else for my now annual convention experience. A friend of mine had already went to Flashback before and I looked into it. If the Robert Englund appearance didn't sway me, the Phantasm reunion sure did. Angus Scrimm is 88 now, I wasn't going to miss a chance to meet him.

The convention started on Friday at around 4-ish. Friday's usually a slower day with a chance to explore the vendor hall and have more time talking to the guests but apparently everyone else, anticipating the rush on Saturday I guess, decided today to get the big names. Englund was off doing his Freddy makeup deal (which I wasn't doing because I don't have a spare $300, good cause or not), but Lance Henriksen and Angus had ridiculously long lines.

Friday highlights:

- Just exploring a convention floor before things really get going. The celebrities hadn't even arrived yet so it gave me the opportunity to look at their booths to get a general idea of prices.

- Meeting William Forsythe, Lance Henriksen and Angus Scrimm. I didn't talk much with them because their lines were huge unfortunately. Angus in particular had a line that wrapped out into the hallway. I don't think Flashback was prepared for this, as I think they expected everyone to go for Englund. Angus is getting around kind of poorly these days (several people noticed him in a wheelchair on Saturday, myself included) but his mind is still as sharp as ever. He signed my DVD of Phantasm with "Boy", so I was a happy horror fan.

- Meeting Katharine Isabelle. I've had kind of a crush on Katie Isabelle for a while now and actually meeting her did nothing to stop it. Of all things, we talked about her episode of Goosebumps and how shitty the sponge monster looked in "It Came From Beneath The Sink". Yes, Katharaine Isabelle was in Goosebumps. Look it up on Netflix.

- Charles Band's Full Moon Roadshow. Oh man, where do I even begin? I've had a long-standing love for Mr. Band Full Moon pictures for years. I wouldn't get to meet the man until a day later but I did go to his road show. In addition to hilarious stories about working with Gary Busey and coming up with the marketing for Ghoulies (which you can actually hear on the commentary for Puppet Master II), he had a live stage show where guests acted out a scene. A guy played the monster and the audience selected "hot chicks" to fight him. One of these "hot chicks" would show her boobs (willingly) in exchange for lots of free merch. So hey, there were live boobs on stage. If you are at a con and they're advertising one of these, go. It's a lot of fun. What else are you going to do at a convention at 9 PM? Get drunk?

- Artist Joel Robinson. Go to his website and check out his stuff. He's been doing some of the covers for Scream Factory, including the upcoming Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions. Really great guy and I hope he has continued success.


Saturday was understandably more hectic, because it was one of two days to get my Robert Englund stuff in and the only day to get my Phantasm reunion photo. So I spent the first half of the day doing all of that.

- Englund was once again, a guy I couldn't talk with for very long but I did make the most of my time. During the photo op he unleashed the Freddy laugh with the glove at my throat so that was amazing (and a little scary, not going to lie).

- Charles Band again. I finally made it back to the Full Moon booth because Band revealed that if you signed up for three months of Full Moon Streaming at the con, you would get three free DVD or Blu-rays. It's only six bucks a month so that's a sweet deal. Band, being the fan-loving professional that he is, threw in another free blu-ray when there were errors in signing up (due to the devices being stupid, not the website). Then he signed one of them and posed for a photo. The whole time he was just thanking me for being patient and actually remembered me the rest of the convention. I seriously can't say enough nice things about the guy.

- Robert Englund's Q&A: He's all over the place with his topics but man he is a great guy to listen to talking about movies. 45 minutes simply wasn't long enough.

- Phantasm Live In Concert. Reggie Bannister and his band, Kat Lester and Bill Thornbury all provided some of their songs for the Flashback crowd. This included Reggie's "Have You Seen It" from Oblivion and "Sittin' Here At Midnight" from the first film. Kat Lester...well sultry would be the best way to describe her. If there was a piano, I would expect her to lie on it while it was played. It was like a lounge act, and I mean that in the best way. Oh and Angus Scrimm sang some songs too. Don't take my word for it, some folks decided to record videos and post them on Facebook:

- After that, Synapse Films ran a screening of Prom Night. I stuck around to watch because I had nothing better to do and it was an okay way to kill some time, I guess. I'm not a fan of the movie. Also some drunk douche spilled his beer on me and tried to act like he didn't. People are dicks when drunk, that's all I'm saying. Apparently Synapse was upset by the screen setup because it didn't show the proper 4k transfer but I don't think the crowd that stuck around really cared. Most of them were drunk and just wanting to watch a slasher movie.

Sunday was the last day and things really began to wind down, including my money. So I didn't do as much in the vendor hall and mostly stuck to the free panels that were going on (featuring John Franklin & Courtney Gains, Nicholas Vince & Barbie Wilde and William Forsythe).

- However I did meet Jen and Sylvia Soska, directors of American Mary. If I wasn't already a fan of these two before, I definitely am after Flashback. They were great during the Mary panel and they were great with every single guest. Everyone that went to the table got a good conversation and talking about generally geeky stuff. They like gory horror movies, wrestling, comic book movies and they're really fun. I will go to their booth at every single con we're both at just to say high. Easily in my top five of celebrity meetings, and having a photo with the two (one on each arm) isn't a bad keepsake either.

- I also met the Chatterer himself, Nicholas Vince, and we talked about Hellbound for a bit. He was a really nice guy as well.

Finally, I got to meet Jennifer Rubin and got a high five for mentioning the fact I liked her better in Bad Dreams than I did Dream Warriors. I do, damn it. Unfortunately she didn't have any photos from the former to get autographed so I still have the Taryn photo with "I'm beautiful and bad" written on it. I saw her so much during the weekend already because it seemed like any time I was on the elevator going to and from my room she'd step on.

Sunday ended earlier than Saturday and so did my Flashback Weekend. I've already described the incident at the hotel bar so I won't get into that again. Needless to say this was my favorite convention ever and if I'm able, I'll be repeating next year. Join me, won't you?