Yesterday my wife and I drove up to Flint for an early celebration of Halloween. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, sunny and cloudless with an occasional confetti of wind-blown leaves. We were headed to the annual Flint Horror Convention, held this year at the Riverfront Banquet Center in the downtown. I reassured my wife—who is not a horror fan—that this was essentially an “arts and crafts” show, which was sort of true. My atonement is almost certainly going to include required attendance at an opera or a ballet in the upcoming year.
I had
never been to a horror convention before, so only had a general sense of what
to expect. Most of the conventions I
attend are professional ones that focus on helping the disabled recover from
their injuries and have a better quality of life. This was not
the theme of this year’s HorrorCon. As
we drove north through the downtown, the streets of were eerily devoid of any
people. This seemed appropriate. On this
afternoon the fibrillating heart of the city was busy with the entrepreneurial
displays of the undead.
Flint
has seen tough times, but its citizenry are resilient and enthusiastic about
their town. One could see this spirit in
a free monthly newspaper put out by Flint Comix & Entertainment. There were piles of these on a table just
outside the exhibit hall. On the front
page was a sketch of an enormous anthropomorphized Cthulhu leaping out of a
stormy sea. The newspaper was jammed
with both local and national comics—including Mark Tatulli’s wonderfully morbid Liō.
The
paper also contained a letter from the mayor, (“Our Flint: Strong and Proud”),
a discussion of cryptozoology, an interview with a writer and two cast members
of Night of the Living Dead (1968), and
ads from various businesses involved with dining, local entertainment,
collectibles, graphic art, astrology and so forth. The Flint Institute of Art is featuring an
exhibit of “The Art of Video Games” until mid-January. Just wonderful stuff.
Not far
away, dozens of costumed folks were lining up for photographs in the Petrifying
Pin-Up Pageant, an initial step in the eventual crowning of the Bride of Flint
Horror Con. Some appeared as familiar
characters from horror movies—a larger than life Leatherface caromed about the
display tables—and some were creepily unidentifiable. An artist nearby was busy inflating and
twisting balloons into enormous, intricate creatures that dwarfed the children
watching him work. The program also
included a selection of over a dozen short films, several by local producers,
but I declined to inflict any of these on my patient spouse. I will check these offerings out next year, when I arrive solo.
Inside the
exhibit hall were tables laden with all sorts of horror-ware—about 40 venders
in all. Several folks were hawking movie
memorabilia, posters and DVDs. But a
number of folks had artfully and playfully incorporated movie horror imagery
into everyday household objects. For
example, one clever person had fashioned tissue dispensers in the shape of the Hellraiser puzzle boxes. There were lunchboxes decorated with images
from The Nightmare Before Christmas,
and drink coasters with stills and headshots from various horror movies of the
1930s and 1940s. (I purchased one of
these that was decorated with a grainy black and white photo of the archetypal
haunted house.)
This
was the most interesting aspect of the Flint Horror Convention: that people would carefully and lovingly incorporate
nightmarish imagery into everyday objects.
Not to make too much of this, but one wonders if this recycling of the
frightful is a psychological mechanism to get power and control over the
horrors of life—which themselves are becoming “everyday” in our life: serial
killers, hatchet wielding terrorists, a new plague, a new war. Are they as frightening if you can set your
drink down on top of them?
Certainly
it was bracing to see so many phobias, obsessions and general twistedness
displayed so openly. Sadly, the bins of
ensanguined teddy bears and decapitated dolls’ heads received little attention
from wandering and startled customers.
Chuck
Williams, one of the celebrity guests at the HorrorCon, manned a table
featuring some old DVDs, among them John
Dies At the End (2012). When I
mentioned recently seeing this film and being very impressed, he insisted I
pick up a copy of a Collector’s Edition
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), an earlier film also written and directed by Don Coscarelli,
creator of the Phantasm series. Bubba
Ho-Tep looks like a lot of fun—Elvis defends a retirement home against an
ancient Egyptian Mummy! (Williams played
Elvis’s friend in Bubba Ho-Tep, and
has since acted in and produced a variety of films.) There were a number of other horror celebrities
featured, representatives of everything from The Exorcist to Batman to
The Evil Dead.
A
highpoint for me was getting to meet several members of the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers,
which allowed me to purchase a freshly autographed edition of Erie Tales, the annual anthology of
short fiction produced by local writers in the GLAHW. Wonderful stuff about horrors indigenous to
our home state.
Judging
by my initial visit to the Flint Horror Convention, the field of horror
entertainment is alive and well—or at least vibrantly undead. My only criticism, a
minor one, was the absence of any food or drink vender. This left attendees with nothing to snack on
save the flesh and blood of the living.
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