Festival of Fear #1

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

This year I went to Rue
Morgue’s third annual Festival of Fear held at the Metro Toronto Convention
Centre more excited than ever.  This was because my buddies JoBlo and
The Arrow were able to come down to the huge Fan Expo and grace everyone
with their presences. 

Me and the head cheese JoBlo!

Although, they both
unfortunately were stuck behind their booth most of the time, (lord knows what
they did to stay entertained…) I was able to cover the event for the site with
no problems whatsoever. (Except for being sexually harassed by some fan boys,
but after three years covering this convention, I’m used to that by now.)

Me and boozer The Arrow ; )

With the exceptions of
Guillermo Del Toro’s cancelling, Linda Blair’s unbelievable dog/vegan rants,
(which I will comment on later) and  serious god damn Trekkies constantly
blocking my way to panels, this year’s festival proved to be just as fun and
entertaining as the previous two festivals held at the Convention Centre. Again,
I am happy to be covering this event for the JoBlo/AITH family and I hope you
enjoy the read and the photos! (I hope to God, The Arrow doesn’t post any of my
drunken after party photos! lol)

Michael
Berryman

The first panel belonged to a
man who is in my opinion one of the most underrated actors out there.  Many
horror fans may know him from his roles as Pluto in the The Hills Have Eyes
movies and more recently as Clevon, the accused chickenf*cker in The
Devil’s Rejects.  I, myself will always fondly remember him as the teacher
moonlighting as a mutant biker that Lisa created to give Gary and Wyatt courage
in my all time favorite movie, Weird Science. (I know, I’m a geek!)

Ironically, this man is
probably one of the most kindest and most compassionate people that has ever
spoken at this convention. It was also incredibly entertaining hearing him
recite monologues committed to memory from The Hills Have Eyes and
Blade Runner.  Here is what I got out of his panel:

-His next project that will be
coming out is a horror indie called Fallen Angels. This movie stars Kane
Hodder, Bill Moseley, and America’s Next Top Model, Adrianne Curry.

-He also just finished up a
horror film with Re-Animator’s Jeffrey Combs called Black Water.
   It’s based on a real life story about a serial killer who leaves a flower on
each of his victims.  He is playing a detective with OCD who is working on the
case.

-He’s working on another film
called StoryTeller. His character is the Story teller in the movie.  It’s
being directed by Andrew Getty. A director Michael only had praise for.  He also
confirmed that the movie was not starring Alison Eastwood.  She was  replaced by
Dina Meyer due to her bad acting. The love interest in the film is being played
by Sean Patrick Flannery. 

-He admitted that he would like
to play a serious romantic role and how he loves ballroom dancing…(strange,
eh?)

-He thought the new The
Hills Have Eyes remake really missed the mark. He said the original film had
real gritty cinematography and how you cared about the characters, both good and
bad. Although he felt the nuclear/radiation take on the mutated family was an
interesting element to the film, he felt there was not enough back story, and
how he didn’t have any empathy for the family whatsoever. 

-He wanted to play Grandpa Fred
in the remake, but Alexandre Aja turned the offer down, saying fans would 
always associate him as playing Pluto in the original film, and didn’t want to
confuse people. 

-He will not appear in
the sequel to The Hills Have Eyes remake.

Walter
Phelan

This actor may not be a house
hold name, (in fact the majority of you horror fans out there may not even know
who this man is) but you have seen him in films such as From Dusk til Dawn,
House on Haunted Hill, and Wishmaster. He just had A LOT of make up
on. His most popular role to date would probably be his portrayal of Dr. Satan
in Rob Zombie’s The House of 1000 Corpses and ( for people who
have seen the deleted scene), The Devil’s Rejects.  

This panel was the one I didn’t
want to miss due to the fact that I felt Walter deserved a little recognition
from horror fans, especially after having his scene cut out in The Devil’s
Rejects. (Can you imagine how much time it took to do his make up?)  I
came to this panel not expecting the interesting and funny  anecdotes Walter had
about his experiences of working as a suit actor in horror films. He’s a really
cool guy who I hope we see more of in horror movies for years to come. Here are
some of the details of his panel:

-He recently teamed up again
with Director William Malone for William’s episode, The Fair Haired Child
in Masters of Horror. He plays Johnny Thing, and said it was a good but
difficult shoot because he couldn’t see anything under his costume. 

-He knew his scene in
The Devil’s Rejects was cut on the last day of shooting for the movie.  He
really wasn’t too upset, because he felt the scene with Dr. Satan killing the
nurse (played by Rosario Dawson) did feel out of place.  He agreed with Rob
Zombie’s quote saying it was like seeing Chewbacca in
Bonnie and Clyde.

–He
only had one take in the cut scene to rip Rosario’s neck.  (Stressful!)

-He also worked with Todd
Masters on Demon Knight. It was his hardest shoot, because he worked 24
hour days, and had to be as thin as possible for the zombie role he had. When
taking off the makeup, it would take off some of his skin as well. (OUCH!)

-It took 4-5 hours to be made
up as Dr. Satan.

-Is not only a suit actor, but
a stuntman as well.  He did Tiny’s stunt work in The House of 1000 Corpses.

Linda
Blair

I usually like to give the
celebrity on the panel a nice introduction, but the only good things I can say
about this panel is that Linda Blair looks amazing and is very passionate, and
that’s ABOUT IT!  Linda Blair’s performance in The Exorcist was truly
horrifying, yet her panel was even more so.

She came onto the stage and
proceeded to talk for over an hour about her "World Heart Foundation" about
saving dogs, how breed bans were wrong, and how people need to learn how to
discipline their dogs. (NO JOKE!)  From word of mouth, I heard that Linda Blair
cancelled her appearance at last year’s Festival of Fear due to a dog show.

Well this year, she brought the
dog show here!  Although, I did agree with what she had to say. My dog is a
mastiff who has been disciplined pretty well…and I’m stopping right there, you
know why? That’s because it’s very inappropriate to talk about my dog on a
HORROR site! Just like it’s extremely inappropriate to be talking about dogs at
a HORROR convention that people have spent their hard earned money on. 

People wanted to hear this
woman talk about her experiences on The Exorcist and other horror films,
and THAT’S IT! Sorry folks, but I have no good information about this panel,
because the second she brought up her book about being a vegan and how everyone
should become a vegan, I got up and left.

Believe me, I wasn’t the only
one. She even charged ten dollars at her booth to just take a god damn picture
with her! My words of advice to Ms. Blair is to stop doing horror conventions
and to concentrate on her foundation because the horror fans are NOT her target
audience anymore.

LOOK OUT
FOR PART 2 AND MY PICTURE GALLERY SOON!