I spent a few hours at a horror convention. After too long without this twice annual event, people were happy to brave nasty weather to buy scary merchandise and meet horror related celebrities.
We spent hours strolling through the shopping mecca of scary stuff; movies on DVD, tee shirts, collectibles, jewelry, action figures and reproductions of iconic items like the Phantasm sentinel sphere and Thor’s mighty hammer (I thought about trying to heft it, but figured I’m not worthy).
The crowd was amazing, polite, pleasant and mannerly. I was also told that the celebs were gracious. Though I was familiar with a few of them, I didn’t seek any pre-paid autographs or photos, though a friend did get a picture with a popular television serial killer vigilante and was thrilled to get up close and personal with somebody so well-known.
Part of the thrill for me was just watching the parade of humanity. One daring fellow went full-on with applying an afore-mentioned Phantasm sphere to be lodged in his forehead. A variety of cosplay guests (persons who try to exactly replicate a popular culture character by wearing a costume and full makeup and/or accessories/prosthetics), including Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, moved through the crowd and posed for pictures. I even saw a youngster dressed as Chucky in his pre-evil killer doll persona. Some women wore horror-themed dresses, and plenty of jackets sported scary themes.
Among the crush of people, we did notice a lot of body art revealed with bare arms and creatively covered torsos, and the only bad thing to speak of was the fact that the aroma of a certain controversial plant occasionally crossed our paths because somebody had taken a smoke break before entering the convention floor. The police officers strolling the area had nothing really to do. The attendees were civil.
Movies ran in one of the hotel auditoriums on a continuous schedule. Annual vendors were easy to find for their regular visitors, and I met up with the tee shirt vendor who was happy to announce that he got licensing for some popular shirts. I got three.
Horror themed conventions aren’t that much different from others, and it was liberating to go out on a cold and rainy/snowy day and see some interesting things.
I’ll even sleep well tonight.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 