PHOENIX FEARCON V...The Aftermath

It was Saturday, October the 13^th around noon and there may have been a few clouds in the sky. Christopher, Matty and I made our way to FearCON 5 in hopes of having a devilishly good time; and I’m happy to report that we did just that!

It was the first time Dark of the Matinee attended FearCON in its five years of existence and we hope to attend every year from now on. FearCON was made up of a film festival in one theater and events in another. The film festival side of the convention boasted four feature films and ten short films. The events were made up of a few different things including the Dr. Diabolic Traveling Road Show, a zombie fashion show, a zombie discussion panel, a costume contest and more! There were even some events going on in the parking lot.

The festival was held at Scottsdale’s Ultra Star Cinemas which is a really nice theater that I had only been to once before. The theater’s employees were all friendly and seemed to enjoy the new scenery of zombies, goblins and other hellishly fun costumes! Between films and events the convention had an array of vendors located throughout the corridor of the theater.  Some of them were selling cupcakes while others were selling horror films. Probably the scariest vendor of the group was what I might call a petting zoo. For only $1.00 you could hold a snake or other reptilian creature.  Rest assured I stayed as far away from that vendor as possible.

Our favorite attraction outside of the films was the table where Fred Williamson and Tiffany Shepis were hanging out. There was pretty much never a line to meet them and while they were selling prints to sign for their fans they weren’t rude and were happy to meet the fans. Another great vendor was the Monsterland Bar & Grill; they were there to inform all the horror fans about some upcoming Halloween themed parties. This was our first time hearing about Monsterland Bar & Grill but we will be sure to go there soon and check out this monster themed restaurant.

Overall the FearCON staff did a great job choosing their features and short films. Some of them seemed to run a little long for the type of film they were while others you couldn’t get enough of. I think we all really enjoyed the last two features, House of 100 Eyes and Inbred but our biggest take away from FearCON was the short film I Want to Be Tom Savini by director Bianca Luedeker who was in attendance. We got a chance to meet Bianca and despite her film stating she was shy, she was great to talk to as a fellow Tom Savini fan.

We expect to see FearCON continue to grow and we’ll be there to cover it as they do. As good as most of the films were this year we can only expect the quality of film to improve also. Make sure you follow them on Facebook here:  FEARCON on Facebook and if you couldn’t make it out there this year, make sure you plan to attend next year to get ready for Halloween!

-Brett O. Walker