Editorials
[Rock and Shock ’14] Event Report With Photos!
Event Report By @BrianWilkins:
Last weekend, “Rock and Shock” returned to Worcester, Mass. for the eleventh consecutive year.
In addition to celebrity photo ops, autograph sessions, panel discussions, film screenings, costume contests, and a vendor room, “Rock and Shock” distinguishes itself by combining the standard horror con offerings with multiple nights of (primarily) horror-inspired musical acts. While the convention itself is held at Worcester’s DCU Center, the concert portion of the event takes place (within walking distance) at the Palladium — an auditorium-size concert venue with a rich history in the area’s alternative and heavy metal music scene.
This year’s eclectic celebrity lineup included the likes of Brad Dourif (Child’s Play), John Ratzenberger (Cheers, Toy Story), Roddy Piper (WWF, They Live), Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, From Beyond), Andrew Divoff (the Strain, Wishmaster), Derek Mears (Friday the 13th ’09), Bill Moseley (Devil’s Rejects, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Sid Haig (The Devil’s Rejects, Hatchet III), Dee Wallace (The Frighteners, Cujo, ET), Jake Busey (The Frighteners, Starship Troopers), Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th, Hatchet), William Forsythe (The Devil’s Rejects, Halloween ’07), Nivel Ogre (Repo! The Genetic Opera), Fiona Dourif (Curse of Chucky, True Blood), Tom Savini (From Dusk Til Dawn, Machete), Kristina Klebe (Halloween ’07, Chillerama), Alex Vincent (Child’s Play), Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Demons), John A. Russo (Night of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead), Lynn Lowry (The Crazies), Tony Atlas (WWF), and Tom DeNucci (Almost Mercy, Army of the Damned). Original headliner Tara Reid was pulled from the show two weeks ago, following a scheduling conflict.
The musical portion of the three-day event included GWAR, Life of Agony, Over Kill, Twiztid, Blaze, The Rocking Dead (Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein, Alan Robert, Ace Von Johnson, Kriz DK, Virus), and several others.
While “Rock and Shock” officially kicked off with some limited programming on Friday, I wasn’t able to attend until Saturday afternoon. So this report will only cover the happenings of the second and third day of the event.
I arrived on Saturday just after 12-noon. After checking in at the ticketing/press area, I headed directly to the vendor room. Greeted by the “Rock and Shock” staff, I laid my zig-zagging plan of the convention floor. I decided to start at the south end of the hall and would systematically weave my way through the aisles of posters, DVDs, t-shirts, artists, and action figures to the north end — where the celebrities are traditionally corralled.
One of the first (and quite possibly oddest) booths I happened upon, was selling giant snakes, turtles, iguanas, a small crocodile (yes, really), and some spiders — including a tarantula, that I was convinced (after some prodding) to let sit in my hand. To be honest, holding a gigantic hairy spider was’t half as weird as you might think. I won’t be calling one a pet anytime soon, but I can now check that off my nonexistent bucket list of “weird shit to do”.
Some of the other standout booths included Horror Decor (who sell the Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees wrestling buddies, sheets with blood splatter printed on them, and a variety of horror-themed candles), the VHS Preservation Society, Troma Entertainment, Full Moon Features, and New England convention and wrestling event staple: Sinners and Saints (wrestling, horror and music merchandise), plus dozens of others offering a wide variety of memorabilia, clothing and art.
After making my way through the dealers and walking by each of the celebrity autograph tables, it was time to head over to the panel area for “The Frighteners” reunion. The panel included Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace and Jake Busey. The trio discussed their time making the 1996 film with Peter Jackson in New Zealand — which starred Michael J. Fox. Wallace explained that while shooting the film, Fox was traveling back-and-forth from New Zealand to the US to meet with doctors — as this is when he was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Wallace went on to talk about losing her husband, who suffered a heart attack, while she was working on the film — which led to her losing a considerable amount of weight.
Next up, “The Rocking Dead” took the panel area stage. After a somewhat rocky start (due mostly to a moderator not being available), the panel — which included Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein (Misfits, Doyle), Alan Robert (Life of Agony), Wednesday 13 (The Murderdolls), Ace Von Johnson (Faster Pussycat), Alex Story (Doyle), Kriz DK (Deadstar Assembly) and Virus (Dope) — prodded the audience for questions. Doyle kicked things off by pointing toward the audience and telling them that they’d go down each row, so everyone could ask a question. The somewhat disorganized discussion ranged from hometowns, favorite horror movies, musical inspirations and future projects. Doyle, who is well-known for not getting too in-depth during interviews and Q&As, was especially quiet, offering little more than “yeah” or “nah” answers to most of the audiences’ questions.
After another excursion through the vendor hall, it was time for the Child’s Play panel. Brad Dourif, Fionna Dourif and Alex Vincent discussed the series, their characters, and the legacy of the franchise.
Horror convention favorite Kane Hodder, who played Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th (VII-X) and Victor Crowley in the Hatchet series, along with his biographer Mike Aloisi, were up next. The duo discussed Hodder’s acting career, how they went about writing his biography, and their latest project — a video series, that shares the same name as one of Aloisi’s books “The Killer and I” — which follows the antics of the ”odd couple of horror” as they travel around the world.
You can check out a preview of “The Killer and I” below:
Looking back on his career, Hodder explained how fortunate he feels to have had the roles and opportunities that he’s had, telling the audience: “you appreciate it more, when you never expected it.”
“There’s a lot of actors, that I’ve worked with, that I don’t care for as humans,” Hodder admitted. “They don’t seem to appreciate where they are and how tough life can be without the position they’re in.”
Asked about his favorite experience as the iconic Jason Voorhees character, Hodder cited “Part VIII”, saying: “When I was in full costume with the mask on, in the middle of Times Square on a Friday night at 10 o’clock and there’s thousands of people held back by NYPD, watching us film. It was so amazing to stand there in-between shots and do the head turn towards a certain group of people and they’d go nuts and (were) screaming.”
“I felt like the biggest rockstar in the world. It was the only time that I didn’t want the night of shooting to end.”
The final panel of the day was a conversation with Rowdy Roddy Piper. The “Hot Rod” discussed breaking into professional wrestling after living on the street, his early days in Don Owen’s Portland Wrestling, working in the NWA and being an integral part of professional wrestling’s boom period, opposite Hulk Hogan, in the 1980s. Piper also discussed making the 1988 sci-fi/horror classic “They Live”.
Following dinner and catching up with friends, it was time to head over to the Palladium for GWAR.
I arrived just after 11 p.m. as the band took the stage. Quickly slapping the photo pass on my shirt, I headed for the stage — camera in-hand.
If you’ve never seen GWAR, stop what you’re doing, open another browser tab and check these guys (and gal) out on Youtube. Their full stage show includes each member of the band taking on the persona of barbaric interplanetary warriors dressed in over-the-top foam and rubber costumes as they slay celebrities, politicians and monsters alike — all while shooting red and green color liquid toward the audience.
Standing to the left of the stage, I chose my position, avoided the liquid like it was the plague and shot several photos during the band’s first few songs. Aside from my elbow being covered by the blood-colored liquid, projected from Vulvatron’s huge costume breasts, I was able to escape with a dry camera and at least a few good shots.
With the band’s decision to continue, following former lead singer/bassist Dave Brockie’s unexpected death in March, the reaction going into the show seemed mixed — with some fans feeling that “It just won’t be the same without Dave Brockie.”
By the end of the night, GWAR proved that it won’t be the same — and probably shouldn’t be. With vocals now being shared among new members; Blöthar (Michael Bishop) and Vulvatron (Kim Dylla), the group tore through a two-hour setlist — which included a tribute to their fallen comrade Oderus Uriungus (Brockie).
On Sunday morning, I made the trek back to Worcester. After shooting some photos of the costumed attendees and yet another walk through the vendor area, I caught a few minutes of John Ratzenberger’s panel. Ratzenberger, who appeared at “Rock and Shock” this year as a “make good” for having to cancel in 2013, is best known for his portrayal of ‘Cliff’ on “Cheers” and his voice-acting work in Pixar’s “Toy Story” series. He discussed his approach to voice-acting and how he adjusts according to the look, history and his feel for the character. He also talked about the ‘Cliff’, noting that he was responsible for many aspects of character’s personality.
At 1:00 p.m. it was time for “The Sick Man Panel”, which included Twiztid, Blaze, Kane Hodder and Sid Haig. While I only have a surface-level understanding of the whole Juggalo culture, I found both members of Twiztid to be fairly interesting to listen to and extremely personable. Their fans turned out in full-force for the panel — with a packed room that saw every seat filled, for the first time all weekend. As the panel continued more and more Juggalos filled the room, standing ten-deep at the entrance. Both Hodder and Haig, who star in Twiztid’s “Sickman” music video, talked about being fans of the music. Hodder admitted to listening to a lot of their music while filming “Hatchet III”. He said it helped him “get in the zone” to play the maniacal Victor Crowley.
Here’s Hodder and Haig in “Sickman”
On Monday, Rock and Shock organizers posted a “thank you” to their Facebook page:
Everyone here at Rock and Shock would like to give our heartfelt thanks to every fan who came to the show this weekend. We try extremely hard to put on the best show we can, and your continued support over the years not only means the world to us, but keeps us going show to show. We have eleven under our belts now and are planning to finish our first dozen with a bang next year.
“Rock and Shock” returns to Worcester’s DCU Center and Palladium in October 2015.
Follow Brian on Twitter for his thoughts on horror, sci-fi, design and other general musings at @brianwilkins
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
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