Monster-Mania March 2024

This past weekend marked the latest edition of Monster-Mania in March. My friend, Freddie, went on Saturday, March 9. 2024. And, while there was the looming threat of a rain storm in the afternoon and for our return home (spoiler alert: it hit us), we still had a total blast!

John Philbin, who was there as part of the Children of the Corn reuion, was the first guest we met. He was so incredibly nice in person! I met him for The Return of the Living Dead, which is one of my personal favorite movies. He got a kick out of the fact that Jewel Shepard wrote the "I never did like you" quote on my DVD (you can see towards the end of this article). He also talked to us about how much he loved working on movies like Point Break, cause of his love for surfing.

Speaking of that Children of the Corn reunion, both of us together, met Isaac, himself, John Franklin. He was also incredibly nice, being personable and very friendly with us.

The coolest, most awesome, and nicest celeb we met, I think, had to be Lou Taylor Pucci. He talked to us for a bit, as we discussed how awesome Evil Dead (2013) is, how he got the role in Fanboys, how much he liked my patches, especially the Elvira one, as he too, had a childhood crush on her, and more. He was so friendly and personable, and was one of the coolest guests ever!

The last celeb that I went up to was the one, I was most excited to meet, one of our Horror Crush inductees, the lovely Jane Levy of Evil Dead (2013), Don't Breathe, etc. She was mostly quite in person, but thanked me when I told her about my love for Evil Dead. She also told me that she liked my patches and was all smiles. I know she cancelled on Sunday, so we lucked out on meeting her when we did.

Here are some cool cosplays and stuff, that I saw on this day:

Without a shadow of a doubt, this Opera cosplay was my favorite of the day, and honestly, one of the coolest I have ever seen! She was very grateful and flattered that I knew and liked her cosplay. But, you guys already know my love for Italian horror don't you? I mean, I was wearing a Lucio Fulci's Zombie Fright-Rags long sleeve on this day!

The two things of mine that I got autographed are:

-The Return of the Living Dead by John Philbin
-Evil Dead (2013) by Lou Taylor Pucci

If you're curious why I didn't get Levy to sign my Blu-ray of it, it's cause her autograph was too expensive.

The only swag that I bought were movies. For what it is worth, of these three, I've only seen is Existenz before. Anywho, they are:
- David Cronenberg's Existenz 4K at Vinegar Syndrome 

- Lucio Fulci's Contraband (Cauldron Films, slipcover edition) at Diabolik DVD 

- Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (limited edition, slipcover with bonus movie also from director Al Adamson: Brain of Blood) at Severin Films

About the only complaint we had was the shuttle that we had to take after parking at a school. This is a new thing that they have started for Monster-Mania. While we lucked out both times, we think that they need to run more than fucking one at a time! The ride back home sucked having to drive in the rain storm with heavy traffic. That has nothing to do with the con, itself, though, and we simply had a blast. We already look forward to the August edition!