My First Horror Convention

After shooting the upcoming documentary about the Stephen King “IT” mini-series last July, the production manager, Michael Perez asked if I was interested in horror convention appearances. Honestly, I HAD NO IDEA THAT WAS EVEN A THING. Come September 2017, I had an offer to appear at Famous Monsters in San Jose but a fire raged in Santa Rosa and the promoter (who ended up losing his home) was forced to cancel the event.

Fast forward a few months and we got invited to Days of the Dead in Atlanta, GA. I brought my oldest daughter with me — it was her first time in a plane and I couldn’t have thought of a better bonding exercise than a cross-country trip. We puttered around Atlanta before the event, went to the Coca-Cola museum (priorities) and then we headed back to the hotel for the main event. I really needed her to be my assistant, but as creative as she is she found a way to use my autograph as currency and loaded up on a carry-on bag full of swag.

Three awesome things happened. 1) I got to reconnect with Marlon Taylor after 27 years. Time in a vacuum, it was like we walked off the set yesterday. Of course, now we’re old but he’s amazing with fans and easily a fan-favorite. 2) We got to meet our counterparts from the new movie. We had a great panel with Chosen Jacobs and Jeremy Ray Taylor to discuss the differences between the two adaptations and answer questions from fans.

After the convention came to a close and before we packed up and left for the airport Jeremy Ray Taylor interviewed us for his YouTube Channel.

What’s the third thing? I met “Mean” Gene Okerlund!

What’s my takeaway? Holy SHIT conventions are AWESOME. You get to meet your heroes, buy awesome stuff and you’re welcomed in by a real family of artists and fans — Adolfo, Carrie and Bill really know how to throw a party.