by Valarie Thorpe

Briane Keene, the recipient of the highly coveted 'Whatever Award,' holds the statue aloft. The award in the photo is obscured for reasons we cannot disclose but it has nothing to do with its origins...really.

Mike Roden, Brian Keene and the rest of the Horrorfind.com crew threw a party last weekend and 3,000 of their closest friends showed up.

The Horrorfind Convention in Baltimore was a complete blast for horror fans, highlighted by the enormous amount of thought and imagination the organizers put into the show. The variety of stuff for fans to do was definitely topnotch. Several representatives from Really Scary were dispatched to cover the proceedings as well as take part in one of their panels. I made sure one of those representatives was me!

The man! Bruce Campbell is pointing at me but since I look like a complete goof in that picture I cut myself out. Ahh, the magic of cropping.

We drug ourselves into the Marriott late Friday afternoon. We were literally dragging ourselves through the doors since we had approximately a zillion bags with essential items for a weekend such as this: beer, clothes, beer, books to get signed, beer, action figures to get signed, beer…you know, the important stuff.

"My, I'll bet you monsters lead interesting lives."

We knew we were attending a horror convention but our very first scare took us by surprise…"Are you sure you have reservations at this hotel?" Now I'll admit, we weren't in our evening finery but sheesh we're not talking about the freakin' Four Seasons here. Anyhoo, it appeared they had lost our reservation…or wanted to…we're not sure. Maybe the number of coolers we were toting up to our room might have had something to do with it.

They're not getting rid of us that easy! Undaunted, I began to rifle through my pockets…nothing. Dumped out my backpack…nothing. Getting a little concerned, I looked in the next logical place, one of the coolers. Wala! A confirmation number. I knew I put that damn thing somewhere.

Tom & me. I don't look as big a goof in this one.

"Oh, here you are," the desk clerk said. Crisis averted.

A moment like this called for something...since we didn't really know what that something was, we did the next best thing, went up to our room and had a beer.

Reggie and Diane, another of the Really Scary crew.

Honestly, that was it for us and any bad doings at the convention. The rest of the time was flawless. We met and hung out with a group of amazing authors, we partied continuously, we nabbed pictures and autographs from a super cool group of celebrities and managed to just avoid the elevator that got stuck heading up to a party Saturday night. [If you haven't heard this tale, then you need to subscribe to Jobs in Hell so you can read Brian Keene's account. It almost sounded like the beginning of a joke...Ten horror writers get on an elevator when...]

Friday evening ended up being a total blast. We met Scary Rednecks and Natural Selection author Weston Ochse, who convinced me (I'm kinda shy) to approach my childhood idol and introduce myself. If you didn't grow up in the Washington D.C. area, this name may not ring any bells for you but around here Count Gore De Vol was the man! This was those pre-cable television days. Right about now a few of you just said out loud, 'holy crap, you're old.' But a few of you know from whence we speak. The Count was our local area horror host and he's a legend around these parts. He also doubled as Captain 20 (It was for channel 20, WDCA, ergo the moniker) and hosted sci-fi stuff.

A big thanks to Weston because the Count was super cool, told me a couple of early studio stories and didn't make me feel like a doof. Suddenly emboldened, I headed to the other side of the bar and introduced myself to Tom Savini. Fortunately for me, he also proved to be really nice and didn't make me feel like a fangoof either…even though I am.

So now we're hanging out at the bar, hobnobbing with famous folks and trying hard not to point at all the writers and celebs we keep seeing. But we are elbowing each other and whispering, 'cause like I said, we're fangoofs. It probably went a little like this:

Bruce Campbell (far left) and Ken Foree (middle) served as judges for the costume contest and meet up here with one of the participants.

"Psst, isn't that Karen Taylor?"
"Dude, yea, and over there's Jack Ketchum."
"Holy cripes, Michael Berryman just walked by."
"That's Sephera Giron over there."
"The S.W.A.T. team guy from Dawn of the Dead, Ken Foree."
"And Leonard Lies from Dawn too." "Reggie Bannister, Reggie freakin' Bannister."

Michael Berryman giving directions. Maybe pointing the way to The Hills Have Eyes?

It was like a game of punchbug. I even started slugging the shoulder of whoever was next to me each time I'd spot someone. Then I got slugged and noticed that hurt, so I quit doing it.

Fangoofs or not, it was a helluva lot of fun and fan appreciation was out in full force. These folks treat their fans very well and really went out of their way to make everyone feel a part of things. I didn't mention near enough of the fantastic people we met…authors David Whitman, Mason Winfield, Monica J O'Rourke, Brian Hopkins, Michael Oliveri, John Urbancik, web legend extraordinaire Feo Amante and a ton more.

We spent the weekend taking part in everything the Horrorfind gang had cooked up and that was no small feat since there was a ton to do. We took in a midnight séance, got totally freaked out by a haunted house Kim's Krypt had set up in one of the hotel meeting rooms, watched some movies, listened to some great authors read their work, got autographs from damn near everybody, discovered some of the best ways to make your haunted house look better, learned about corpsifying techniques [yea, you read that right.] And spent waaay too much money in the fantastic dealers' room.

Where would we have been without Lisa and the bartender staff? I shudder to think.

Putting as much emphasis on the writers as they did the film & TV personalities, Horrorfind set the standard for what other cons should try and emulate. Having some real hands-on activities [hehehe] and a wide variety of panels made this con a real standout and we're so there next year!

Please don't hesitate to call on us if you have any questions and/or suggestions about the...accommodations.