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Experience the fun as TALES FROM THE CRYPT takes over HORRORCON LA. We brought some friends along with us: one of our favorite actors SHERRIE ROSE, makeup special effects maestro TODD MASTERS and TV producer extraordinaire ED TAPIA (back then, Ed was the best assistant any producer ever had!). And meet THE CHIODO BROTHERS! I moderated their panel celebrating the 35th anniversary of their B movie classic KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE.
We had a monstrously good time meeting fans, signing autographs, taking pictures and just plain hanging out!
We also did a couple of panels where – How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast-style – we talked about how we soared making Tales From The Crypt and then crashed and burned making Bordello Of Blood.
I also had the pleasure of moderating a panel for the Chiodo Brothers who are celebrating the 35th anniversary of their cult classic KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE which MGM is about to publish as a computer game.
Bravo, Chiodos – Charles, Steven and Edward!
Way, way, way back in the day, Gil and I had a couple of meetings with the boys where we explored the possibility of working together. We all love blending comedy into our horror.
If you’ve never been to a horror convention, you should! They’re a scary good time!
There’s a great vibe to them because the horror community is made up of the sweetest people on planet earth.
But there IS something weird about it all.
As you look around, you notice everyone’s dressed up as Freddy Krueger or Jason or Leatherface for instance, but no one EVER dresses up as any of their victims.
Weird, huh? Except it makes total sense! The monsters are the empowered ones. They have all the fun. Just my opinion, but, I think that’s why horror fans embrace horror so passionately: because it empowers them.
This whole phenomenon began with Star Trek fans – Trekkies – which we talked about right here on the “How NOT To Make a Movie Podcast” with our guest Roger Nygard!
But, back to HORRORCON LA!
Our Crypt panel consisted of ED TAPIA – NOW a super successful producer in his own right – Ed produces Everyone’s All American for the CW – BUT, BACK THEN the greatest assistant a movie or TV producer could ever have… there was TODD MASTERS – Crypt’s makeup special effects maestro, and SHERRIE ROSE – our most favorite actor. We hired Sherrie three times fer Chrissakes!
While we were waiting to go on, we hung out with Tales From The Crypt alumni and fellow HORRORCON participant, actor KEVIN DILLON!
Finally, it was showtime. Here’s a bit of that first panel. We talked about “Getting naked”…
As Sunday – day two – of the convention dawned, Gil awoke feeling ill and prudently decided to stay home.
That left just me, my son Tristan and Ed Tapia to hold down the fort. I think we did a pretty good job!
Sunday’s visitors were even nicer than Saturday’s!
I loved getting to have quality face time with everyone!
And – among the people I bumped into and connected with was SEAN CASSIDY – Lurch’s Son”. I’m not a starfucker in any way, shape or form. I’m not. But Sean’s dad Ted Cassidy – aside from playing Lurch in the original 1960’s ADAMS FAMILY – appears in one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films.
He’s Harvey Logan in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.
He speaks an iconic line when Butch insist they go over the rules before they start their knife fight: “Rules, in a knife fight?” says Logan, “No rules!”
And then – oh-so-ironically (since there are no rules) – Butch Cassidy kicks Ted Cassidy in the nuts.
Stay tuned, kiddees – Sean Cassidy will be a guest on this very podcast in the very near future!
For our Sunday panel – since it was just me and Ed – we moved the chairs from the stage to the floor and we drew the audience in closer. We wanted them to feel like we were shooting the shit with em. Which was exactly what we were doing…
It was a great weekend – would have been even better of course if Gil hadn’t gotten sick – but in life as in movie productions, you zig when you have to and zag when you must and hope like hell that everything works out.
And, ya know? Often-times, it does – like it did for us at HORRORCON LA 2023.
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