Hauntcon Celebrity Row -
By Kara
When we first walked into the Hauntcon
lobby area, we saw Lisa Loring who played Wednesday Addams in the 1960’s
TV show, the Addams Family. There she was, sitting all by her lonesome, except
for her (escort?) close by her side. No adoring fans paying their hard earned
$20 for an autographed picture of her childhood career. I must say, the black
and whites were rather adorable, but that was pretty much the extent of any
intrigue for us. She had removed herself from all of the action in the showroom.
Said it was too loud in there. DOOOD – this is a haunted house convention.
That noise and action are what these people are here for. We left her table
saying – yeah, we’ll stop by later. We just got here. We never
stopped back by.
Inside,
we walked around the showroom floor, but not so gradually made it to the back
wall where we found celebrity row. There we found Reggie Bannister, who starred
in the Phantasm series and played a small role in the masterpiece that is Bubba
Ho-Tep. Next in line was Bill Moseley from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and House
of 1000 Corpses. We didn’t stop. Not because we weren’t interested,
but at this point, we were keeping our distance. Observing from the sidelines.
Next we passed Kane Hodder who played Jason in Friday the 13th parts 7 and 8
and also Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X. We had actually met Kane a few years
back and Shrub got a cheap hockey mask with an autograph. We kind of breezed
past his table and never looked back. Then we paused to take a gander at the
cutey patootie, Michael Berryman. You’d probably know him best from The
Hills Have Eyes. I’ve personally never seen the movie. I don’t know
where I’ve seen him before, but he has a face one doesn’t forget.
We kept on trucking and strolled past the Ed Neal table. You may remember him
from your nightmares. He played the psychotic hitchhiker in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Even without a chat, it was almost like we could feel his energy emanating towards
us. At the end of celebrity row was Jami Deadly, a Marilyn Monroe look alike
who apparently hosts a horror TV show? We didn’t talk to her during the
course of the convention, but Tony got a couple of postcards with the scantily
clad vixen on them. Hot tamale.
While
Shrub was deciding who to talk to first, we walked around the showroom, taking
in the scenery. We didn’t waste much time before heading back to the star
studded section. Shrub approached the different tables, checking out the photos
and asking prices. Turns out this was like a “Everything’s a $20”
store.
First,
we approached Ed Neal. Ed was the person Shrub most wanted to meet. His favorite
movie is Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We’ve already met the adorable, very
huggable Gunnar Hansen and Shrub was almost as excited about meeting Ed. When
we go up to Ed, we notice he’s wearing a T-shirt that says, “tastes
like chicken”. While Shrub was deciding which picture to buy, I asked
Ed if he wanted one of the lollipops I had been handing out around the showroom
floor and he politely accepted. The lollipops had little Goblinhaus flags attached
to them. Ed Neal read the flag and in his best German accent asked, “GoblinHAUS?
This is German?”. He proceeded to speak to us in what was either really
good fake German or the real thing. I dunno. We stood there chatting with him
and I for one was blown away by his energy. He seemed like a really nice guy.
Found out his T-shirt really represented him well. Kind of corny and left us
standing there not knowing what to say. Talks about his kids and how they’re
the ones who yell at him to turn down HIS music. He signed a photo for Shrub
and we stand there and talk to him a while longer. Shrub eventually picked one
of our awkward silences to say – well, we’ll see you later and we
moved on to another table. We both felt bad because we really wanted to talk
to the guy some more and found him to be really funny in a wacky dad humor sort
of way.
After leaving Ed’s table, we shyly approached
Michael Berryman. We were looking at his pictures and talking to him a little
while and before long, were carrying on some great conversations with him.
He signed Shrub’s picture, “Shrub, let’s go camping”.
We stood there talking to him for about 20 minutes I’d say. Found out
he’s in a group dedicated to saving wolves. Told us stories about having
to break into cars to save dogs from dying from the heat. About the owners
of those cars coming out and being furious at him for breaking their windows
while he’s standing there telling them they almost murdered their dogs
by cooking their brains in the scorchingly hot cars. This conversation somehow
moved along to atom bombs. He’s read in science reports that atom bombs
annihilate pure energy. So, he wonders, if humans have souls and our souls
are made of energy, and we were killed by an atom bomb, would that cease our
existence completely? Would it make humans completely disintegrate including
our hypothetical souls? Ultimately an atom bomb would be able to annihilate
an idea. THAT CONVERSATION moves along to him and comedy. And how he’s
going to start a stand-up comedy show this winter in California. If it goes
well, he’ll tour. Man, I hope it goes good. He shares our appreciation
of comedy greats George Carlin and Lewis Black. He’s such a brilliant,
funny and SUPER CUTIE guy. Knows a lot about movies, science, the Simpsons
and doing good for humans and animals alike. I wish we could’ve talked
to him over a few drinks. Later on in the day, we returned and gave him a
Goblinhaus Tshirt. He said he’d wear it on the plane home the next day.
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