Celebrity Dinner! Front Row: Michale Graves, Barbara Nedeljakova, Doug Bradley, Beverly Washburn, Chibo Jones (not pictured: Tom Towles)
Notes on Crypticon Minneapolis 2011
Last weekend saw another fast and furious three-day visit to Bloomington, Minnesota, for the sixth-annual Crypticon horror convention. The Doubletree hotel feels like home now, with its fabulous staff and top-notch accommodations. Promoter Nick Kaufman has once again put together a great show that provides fans with a uniquely intimate venue for meeting vendors, fellow community members and--of course--celebrities.
If you follow Kicking the Seat, you know I've been pimping the hell out of this event and, in particular, the Celebrity Dinner (co-sponsored by Chateau Grrr). This was the third year that Chad Hawks and I hosted a lovely meal in the hotel's private dining room. Fans sipped margaritas and dug into salmon with the likes of Doug Bradley (Hellraiser), Michale Graves (The Misfits), Barbara Nedeljakova (Hostel), and Tom Towles (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer). And, in keeping with tradition, we had a couple of surprise guests in Michale's musician buddy, Chibo Jones, and Spider Baby star, Beverly Washburn!
Dinner was so much fun! In addition to the great food prepared by the chefs, young dinner guest Jeffrey Robinson brought some of his spicy, scratch-made chili sauce, which was served with corn chips. Jeffrey was a tad late to dinner, as he was busy taking first place in the Crypticon costume contest (he showed up to eat dressed as Billy the Puppet from the Saw films; older brother, Justin, named his sibling's spicy/sweet concoction "Billy Juice").
For the first part of the meal, I chatted up Barbara about working on Spider Baby, and watched Doug and Tom engage the table in a spirited discussion of horror remakes and bad sequels, the history of genre filmmaking, and, um Family Guy. We switched tables half-way through the meal to make sure everyone got to spend time with their favorite celebrity (unfortunately, Tom had to leave, but the next day he expressed his sincere pleasure at participating in this unique experience). Over dessert I had a great conversation with Barbara and Jason and Lisa (Jeffrey and Justin's parents) about everything from why Scream 4 didn't quite work to jet lag to our favorite scary movies. Meanwhile, Michale and Chibo entertained the boys and even invited them up to see them perform after dinner.
Once we set the celebrities free for the night, the diners adjourned to the Doubletree lobby for a raffle. No one left empty handed, as we gave away everything from novelty blood-bag drink mixes to signed posters, movies and comics, to a really cool fantasy chess set.
After that, it was up to the room for us. But we didn't crash. Oh, no. We gathered equipment and headed to the suite of independent filmmaker and all-around awesome dude, Cory J. Udler. He'd agreed to tape an interview (which should be available on YouTube in the next few weeks), and as Chad set up the camera, I realized that the party happening in his room was going to provide us with a live "studio" audience. No pressure, right?
It wound up being a blast. We talked about filmmaking in Wisconsin, the genesis of the Incest Death Squad franchise (Part Three, coming soon!), and his newest picture--the decidedly non-horror, but equally twisted Mediatrix. Afterwards, we hung out and talked about movies with horror host, Dr. Ivan Cryptosis, and filmmakers Dustin Drover and Derrick Carey, whose new movie, Swamphead, is going to cause me to break my horror-movie embargo next week.
On Sunday, me and Chad took in an early movie and then returned to the convention to say our good-byes and get a few video testimonials about the dinner. We also met Camden Toy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame; he was so nice, goofy, and talkative that neither Chad nor I could stand the week-long wait to catch up with him again at HorrorHound Cincinnati (yes, folks, we're doing this again in about five days). The floor was eerily quiet, and it's no secret that this year's Crypticon didn't quite hum as much as years past. Hopefully, next year things will get back on track. This is a truly special event, and every attendee I've ever talked to has had nothing but positive things to say and wonderful memories to share.
As for me, I missed my family almost as much as I missed sleep. I slept sixteen of the seventy-two hours we were in town, and by the time we hit the road, my half-bottle of 5-Hour Energy had begun to work in reverse (thank God Chad knows how to drive a Prius). There's probably a lot I'm leaving out of this little write-up. But that's okay. Crypticon is something you do, not something you read about.
But I guess you just did.
Hope to see you there next year!
Note: For a couple more pictures from the event, check out the Crypticon Still Gallery.
Convention Tip: If you plan to get autographs, get them early. Beverly had to leave before the show on Sunday--a fact I learned at the end of dinner Saturday night. I'd meant to get a Spider Baby picture signed, but the window closed before I even knew there was one (sad-face emoticon).