Monsterama Con August 2014

I had the pleasure of going to the opening night of MONSTERAMA CON here in Atlanta last Friday. It is a new convention centered around all things fantastical, scary and wondrous. Harryhausen is spoken here.

I got to the con, located at a nifty Holiday Inn about 8 o’clock and had already missed out on a few things like part one of the Creating a Creature workshop wherein an entire Creature (from the Black Lagoon, natch) will be created by pro FX artists Shane Morton and and the Toho Memories panel as Robert Field discussed being Android 1-11 in Godzilla vs. King Gidorah.

I did catch Atlanta’s own CINEPROV group (and Monsterama Con’s media director Dan Carroll) riffing on the not good film EQUINOX to a very appreciative audience. If you want to know what CINEPROV is, just look up MST3K and know that it happens monthly at The Plaza Theatre in town (on the first Thursday, except this month, in which it’s the second) with the cast doing their level best to make you realize that you didn’t need to like whatever film they’re mocking anyway. Actually, I am pretty sure the trio for EQUINOX’s screening made it bearable. As the Criterion logo came up on the film, I actually muttered out loud “This can’t be a Criterion film…” and got a response from the mockers!

They proved well up to the task of “making fun of the movie so you don’t have to” and as the “story” in EQUINOX is fantastical, it fit right in with MONSTERAMA. Catch them doing Twilight II: Werewolf Boogaloo (that’s my title for it) in August and the 1992 Buffy The Vampire Slayer film wherein you can actually see the long distance bills from Sutherland and Hauer phoning it in. It’s the 1990’s, they didn’t have free long distance yet.

I dropped by another room while I was waiting to see a screening of Atlanta Zombie Apocolypse and checked out a band, Valentine Wolf playing “the finest Victorian chamber metal” music, and while the PA system could have had a little more bass for the vocalist, the duo had a pretty good sense of their own style, with most of the music being pre-recorded, and the male (the singer was a woman) playing a hella cool small, electrified double bass mounted on a stand. They had a pretty attentive crowd as well.

I missed the AZA screening as I went to a room party and got distracted too long. I do also want to throw a shout-out to Larry Wojohoitcwitz from CINEPROV, who gave me his Sideshow Collectables gift card (everyone got one when picking up badges, worth $25!) during the party.

 I am excited to see what Saturday holds for me, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

www.monsteramacon.com for more info