Texas Frightmare Weekend
This year I attended Texas Frightmare Weekend for the first time. By now it seems like forever ago. But lucky you — I saved all the pictures! So here they are without much verbal adornment, or it’d probably take me another month and a half to get this up.
I suggest you take your time with this post. It’s a big one. Really savor the photographs. Left-click to enlarge them. Get a sense for yourself of what it was like to be there — unless, of course, you were actually there, as a good many of you probably were. But even so, there’s a good chance you may have overlooked something interesting. So savor. There’s some good stuff in here.
And oh, by the way, I met that guy in the picture above. Father Evil. He’s from New Jersey and travels the country attending all the big horror conventions. He was one of the first “cosplayers” I came across. Check out his website.
The line on the right was for Elvira. It’s really incredible the crowds she draws. And I am told by my friends at Collector’s Crypt that she is a genuinely nice person. I didn’t meet her, though.
Incidentally — I have no celeb pictures. The costs were pretty outrageous and I didn’t want to stand in line that long. There were plenty of big names there and almost all were in attendance by Friday evening. It’s said to be bad etiquette to snap sneaky pics of celebs at their tables, so I didn’t.
Instead, enjoy some of those curious folks who like to dress up in costume and attend horror conventions.
These guys were genuinely creepy. Played a nice accordion, though.
The convention floor was packed, but still spacious enough that you had room to move around without too much difficulty. I was able to take my time at the many interesting dealer booths.
This magnificent piece, among many others, was from the folks at Collector’s Crypt. Take a look at my recent blog about their store. Such a wonderful place.
A creep from one of my favorite places, Dark Hour Haunted House.
Oddities of all sorts abounded, for sure.
From a curious book called “South Texas Legends” that I should have bought as a gift for my wife, in retrospect. Not too late!
Although I had all evening to look around and play, unbelievably I ran out of time before getting a chance to explore the dark art exhibit. TFW is a huge show. The picture above is from an art dealer’s booth on the main floor.
Easily one of my favorite dealers from the show. This guy’s workmanship is just incredible. So singular are his replicas, in fact, that I had already discovered them by reputation on the internet some time ago. I was pleased to get a chance to see his little gallery in person. And his pieces are impressive. Worth every penny.
The pictures below are from an unknown dealer in punks and oddities. Had I not already spent my allotted budget by then, I surely would have picked up something from this table.
Reminds me of the old king’s ring from The Beastmaster.
A parrot’s head. Why?
There were lots of bats.
…and pickled animals of assorted descriptions.
Another one of my most anticipated dealer booths was the weird and wonderful Texas Triffid Ranch. The store specializes in all manner of exotic carnivorous plants, and also gives lectures for the curious. The proprietor was very enthusiastic about his work. An extremely knowledgeable and interesting guy.
But was he high?
My buddy seemed to think so, but I didn’t get that to be honest.
I tell you, if they sold this as a t-shirt I’d buy ten of them.
Later that night it was time for the “Phantasm Ball” that I wrote about in my Phantasm Screening blog. Although I didn’t get to see Phantasm stars Reggie Bannister and Bill Thornbury perform their classic song Sittin’ Here at Midnight from the movie, I did get to see Freddie and Jason getting down on the dance floor, so there’s that.
Here’s to Texas Frightmare Weekend! It’ll be interesting to see what 2016 is like, as I heard it’s set to take place the week after Wrestlemania.