Cinema Wasteland April 2014

I think I must have a cloud of bad karma hovering over me as far as conventions are concerned. I just found out the girls have a mandatory dress rehersal for dance on the same day as Lake Effect Comiccon (which was going to be Lydia’s first one) and barely an hour into Wasteland I lost my video camera (which was fortunately found but not until this morning. I’ll be picking it up later).

Still not everything is terrible, I ran into a bunch of friends that I only see at Wasteland like Jason and Angelique, not to mention Shrew and Baron Morbid. A nice change was running into Mark Mackaye  and Marc Gettel from POP. Some how I missed Sean, but he may have been there on Sunday (which I skipped this year).

It was fun to run into a couple of newbies in line. I assured them this was the best show in the area – and I do shows from Chicago to Pittsburg.  An interesting thing about wasteland is unlike other shows, you see the same people here every six months. It’s not like Horrorhound or Days of the Dead where you get a fresh flock of folks every year and there’s too many people to make a connection with. But this con also makes newcomers feel welcome, and rightly so.

I actually started off the weekend hitting Tom Sullivan’s room and chatted a bit about Horrorhound. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the line into his room at Horrorhound was huge and constant…he mentioned that yes, it was a steady line of people all day and had been a great con for him. It was a good location for him too, the line for Bruce Campbell went right past him and drove a lot of foot traffic to him. He told me he missed me there and signed my Evil Dead 2 poster before I headed out for the first film.

I was in a bad mood and had a hard time focusing on most of the films, and sadly enough Robert Z’dar didn’t make it. He got a bad case of Pneumonia and was stuck in the hospital, however Wasteland set up a get well card for him which I was able to sign. The rest of the maniac Cop cast however was great. I’d really been looking forward to meeting Tom Atkins -I’m a fan of a lot of his work, not just Maniac Cop but also stuff like Halloween 3, Night of the Creeps, and even the most recent Drive Angry.

Saturday was a better day. I’ve gotten into the habit of cosplaying on at least one day of Wasteland. I’ve gotten to know so many people there that I’m not longer as anonymous as I used to be, but a fully immersive makeup makes me instantly unknown, and still gives me a reason to talk with strangers! I pulled out my Freddy makeup from Halloween. I couldn’t get it quite together for last year, but I was working it this weekend. I had to extend the chin a bit to cover my beard and actually used spirit gum to anchor it (a technique that had been suggested to me over at Hauntville) and was pleased at the result. The best picture of the day I think was the photo with the Ghostbusters.

I think I came away with more movie recommendations than actual films this year, though I did finally get around to grabbing a couple of films I haven’t seen. I’d been waiting to grab a copy of Dawn of Dracula – I’m a fan of Midnight Mausoleum and Marlanea Midnight was nice enough to sign it for me. I also got a copy of Peter Rottentail as a prize during Ghastlee’s show, not to mention this other one that was a givaway on the flyer table. Will have to look into these later.

Speaking of Ghastlees show, the best part I think, was the RC car chase. Sally the Zombie Cheerleader taped a picture of Justin Bieber to an RC car and the goal was to manuver it through an obstical course of beer cans with the faces of Wasteland regulars on them while being chased by two RC police cars. The Biber car kept making it back on stage after that game, distracting Ghastlee in the middle of hosting other games in progress…

One group of people came up to me to tell me how much they liked the makeup. I mentioned that I had done Pinhead a year or so ago and their eyes lit up. “We saw you in the parking lot from the hotel man! that was the freakiest costume ever!”. Looks like I made an impression….they waved goodbye assuring me they wouldn’t sleep tonight.

I didn’t have as much fun this year, but it’s not Wastelands fault. Still I’m getting a little nervous about the conventions I’m doing. Shinboku Con ins next weekend….maybe.

Advertisement