Two days of axes, gore and bloody stumps might sound terrifying, but for fans of the horror genre, it was just what the (mad) doctor ordered on September 24 and 25 in Secaucus, New Jersey. For two days genre fans gnawed at Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors, where hundreds horror fans and a full slate of special guests offered up 48 hours of the mysterious, macabre and meaty. Read on as launches the first in a month-long celebration of all things horror.

”Did Somebody Say Zombies?”
Take a few hundred fans of horror, over a dozen special guests, and an array of vendors selling everything from severed heads to bootleg DVDs, and what do you get? Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors convention, held at Crowne Plaza in Secaucus, New Jersey.

It wasn’t the biggest horror convention in the world. Even some vendors admitted things were slower than expected. But while it didn’t feature the non-stop action of larger conventions, it did feature some excellent special guests and a closer look into some noteworthy names in the genre.

And people in outlandish outfits. You can’t have a convention without that, after all.

The main draw was getting close to the creators of the genre so many attendees adore. Whether for autographs and pictures, to hear the latest news right from the creators’ mouths, or just to chat it up person to person, Fangoria’s event provided plenty of opportunity to do just that, from special panels to signings to a semi-private after-convention gathering for those willing to drop the cash for a gold ticket.

Was there sex? In the form of buxom body-building vampire ladies of doom, yes. Saws? You just might have heard of a film by that name, and if you were at Fango, you just might have heard some big news (see below). Stumps? Hell, journey to the vendor tables and you could buy stumps (not to mention heads, skulls, leg bones, and other gore). Sure, fine, but what about Samara? Actually, yes. Kelly Stables surprised dozens of guests when they discovered that Samara of The Ring Two was not the unsightly, creepy little girl seen on screen, but a totally cute young lady with a warm personality and bright smile.

Which, when seen in the sea of dark eyeliner and goth clothing, must have seemed pretty horrible.

Despite being fairly small, the convention featured plenty of names and faces of note, from shock rocker Dee Snider to screen legend John Landis to Michael Rooker, star of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

There were even a few notable blasts from the past not on the main bill, but tucked away in the vendors room.

“Heeeerrrrrrrrrrre’s Johnny!”
When it comes to horror, there are few titles better known and more beloved than Night of the Living Dead, the landmark zombie film by George Romero that created the template almost every zombie film to come would follow. Fans at Fangoria were treated to an opportunity to talk to Russell Streiner, who played “Johnny” in the film (an uncredited role). And to Streiner, that’s as it should be, because without the fans … well, he wouldn’t have been sitting at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors.

“Since we owe everything to the fans, it’s great when you get to talk to the people,” Streiner told. “We hoped to make a good movie, but it’s the fans that made it a classic. Thirty-seven years later people are still seeing the film, liking it, and talking about it.”

And he’s right. Even now, in 2005, people are discovering Night of the Living Dead for the first time, peering into the earliest days of what is now a wildly popular subgenre – zombie flicks – that many of us take for granted. That “first time” experience is something he said he sees frequently. Streiner sometimes does the college scene, talking to crowds about his experience and discussing what has become a landmark genre film. He said invariably some two-thirds of the young college crowds he speaks to have seen the film. It’s a constant flow of newer, younger viewers being exposed to Romero’s classic for the first time. That is a big factor in keeping the film’s legend alive.

Of course, that legend would have died a long time ago were it not for one very important thing. The film’s humanity.

“Night of the Living Dead, as odd as it may seem, there’s a lot of human drama that went into it,” Streiner said. “One of the things that made it successful is that it focused on telling a story.”

”Bring Out Your Heads! Bring Out Your Heads!”
Streiner’s right. Story is great. It’s damn near vital. But with sparse few exceptions, horror simply couldn’t be without special effects. Some, like Dante Tomaselli, director of Desecration and the forthcoming Satan’s Playground (see below), stand firmly against modern CGI effects. But even his sparse films require effects of one sort or another in order to bring the horror home. When you’re talking about monsters, gore, killing and the supernatural, it’s inescapable. For people like Brian Spears, those special effects had a certain allure that never quite went away.

You see, Spears has a thing for body parts. Heads. Stumps. Bones. You name it, and he has worked closely with it. Yes, they’re all fake. And yes, for Spears, it’s a career he was meant to pursue. After all, he’s been creating heads, stumps and bones for years.

“I’ve been doing this since I was in high school, since I was 13,” he told . The shelves at Fangoria around which Spears sat (some of his wares are pictured above with Light & Dark productions president Glen Baisley) were littered with, you guessed it, heads, stumps and bones, all on sale for the public to buy, and all helping him earn a paycheck.

But like most ardent fans of horror, a paycheck is not why he’s in the business of the bloody.

“If I wasn’t selling them, I’d still be in my basement making them.,” he said. The craft, Spears insisted, is more than a matter of earning a check. It’s an art form. A means of expression. And that’s why, job or no job, he’d continue doing what he was doing.

His wares were on display at Fangoria – did we mention the heads, stumps and bones? – and they were also on display on screen, too, where his own brand of grotesque imagery has been featured in Flesh For The Beast and Shadow: Dead Riot, among others. It’s a turn in his career that has for the last few years treated him very well financially, but which, as a fan, has damaged his ability to enjoy the movies he loves.

“When I watch a movie, I can say, ‘I was just to the left of that shot.’ It totally ruins it to watch any movie,” Spears said.

Maybe what Spears needs is some ass-kicking, big-boobed, muscled-out female vampires, hmmm?

”Your Tits Are Crushing My Skull”
If big-boobed, muscled-out female vampires is what you were looking for, shockingly enough, the Weekend of Horrors provided exactly that, thanks to Gregg R. Simpson. Simpson has big things to say about his upcoming film, Blood And Kisses. Very big things. We mean, really big things.

When asked Simpson, writer, producer and director of the film, about his upcoming tale of female vampires kicking ass, he didn’t miss a beat in responding.

“It’s the most provocative horror movie ever.”

Really, that’s what he said. The most provocative horror movie ever.

Big claim. Totally outlandish. But then again, when your movie features gigantically muscled, buxom women who kick ass and drink blood, “provocative” really isn’t so far-fetched a claim.

“One of the things this movie has is, you’ve never seen vampires that look like this before,” Simpson enthused. “These girls kick some real ass. It’s a lot of fun.”

It’s probably true. You haven’t seen vampires like this before. These gals are big. And we mean big. They could kick your ass from one side of a football field to another, all while their ample cleavage bursts from the top of their barely-there outfits. Blood And Kisses stars three-time Ms. Olympia bodybuilder Cassandra Floyd and the equally-stacked-with-muscles Denise Masino.

It is loaded with action? Yes, according to Masino. But that’s not all. “It’s sensual at the same time,” she said. Sensual, seriously hard-bodied vampires? Hmmmm. “You’re going to watch it, then you’re going to want to watch it again.”

We’ll take her word for it.

Winner of Best Picture at the Las Vegas Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy Horror and the Supernatural, Simpson said the film is a tight, brisk 80-plus minutes, trimmed down from dozens of hours of footage to offer a fast-paced ride of, well, blood and kisses to the viewer.

“I think they (the fans) are going to love it. It’s a totally different concept of female vampires,” Floyd told .

We might be able to argue with a great many things in this world, but that this is a totally different concept of female vampires is not one of those things. Body builder vampires with vaginas? Sounds like totally tongue-in-cheek fun. Sign us up.

Run, don’t walk, to Page 2 of our special look into Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors, as we take a look at the 25th Anniversary release of Cannibal Holocaust, glimpse Saw II, peer into the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and hear a few words from the legendary Clive Barker.

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