Fangoria/Chiller Theatre Horror Expo in Jersey 1/9/04 through 1/11
 

Just another shout out, I"m sure Noel Gross is wandering those isles(and let me know if you have a table dude!) but the Fangoria Horror Show , recently held in Brooklyn and Manhattan has merged with Chiller Theatre and is now being presented at the Meadowlands Sheraton this weekend. You can find hours and pertinent information @ www.chillertheatre.com . But it's really a great one stop shop to pick up rare, foreign and multi-region DVD product and inspect on the spot. DVD wise, usually the Chiller shows make you go "barefoot"(or relatively "boot" free) but these "boots" were made for walkin under the Fango managment. Lots of quality stuff to be had, I picked up a decidely unauthorized DVD compilation of the complete run of Pipers Pit for $20 bucks. Can't be that with a stick. Plenyt of Hero, Shaolin Soccer, Battle Royale, Braindead/Dead Alive uncut, etc. bouncing around. I don't know what the admission cost is, probably $10-15 bucks(I take pride in sneaking in). Not much on the celebrity front this time, unless you count Tom Savini and the Chouleys Gum guy from Clerks as mega stars(at least Savini has the From Dusk Til Dawn gun on display), but their website says Ving Rhames was appearing(I couldn't find him, I'm not into gladhanding celebs, but that might almost have been worth it to see him), but I know Guillermo Del Torro is there all weekend and Selma Blair, who I never heard doing one of these things, is appearing.

This seemed a bit better than the recent Chiller shows, inspite of(or perhaps because of) the small room size. Just a lot less B.S. to go through and more people interested in making a sale. Check it out if you are into rare or hard to find DVD's, or the horror product.

Guillermo del Toro had to cancel (for personal reasons). The reason Chiller is so tough on bootleggers stems from the fact that the FBI has shown up at several shows and have personally escorted out a few dealers who carry bootlegs. They're mostly interested in people who sell bootlegs of films currently in theaters (although 6 or 7 years ago they went bonkers on a guy who was selling bootleg VHS tapes of Song of the South!). The Fango/Creation shows that were held in NYC were dreadful if you were going exclusively to purchase movies. Chiller's April /October shows are amazing if you're an import DVD collector. I haven't missed a Chiller Con since 1990. You can walk into a dealer room thinking there's nothing you're looking for on DVD and walk out spending over $1000 on import discs!

Oh I don't blame them one bit for cracking down on dealers, people will go whether dealers sell boots or not(and there's too much money in it for them not to sell them in some capacity). But i was just suprised by the fact that this PARTICULAR version had been probably tenfold more relaxed on that kind of product. I didn't see any theatricals, but I did see plenty of the Star Wars OT and other stuff I mentioned.

they announced some great news!!!

Blue Underground has announced that Argento's Four Flies On Grey Velvet and the remastered Zombie!!!!

Their rereleasing Zombie? SWEET! I hate that the AB disc doesnt have any chapters...its organized as just one title and you have to FF instead of skipping chapters...and it could use a new transfer...

It's about time for four flies on grey velvet. This is now on a short list of my most anticipated releases.

As to the Zombie rerererelease, what ever happened the the media blasters version (which seemed pretty jammed packed and nice, whether or not itll ever be out i guess we will see)?

I've been a vedor at Chiller for the past 4 years. We didn't have a stand for this Fango show b/c the space was small & Chiller is run by such idiots in such a half ass manner, that it just wasn't worth the hassle. Also, If they were coming down on bootleggers at Chiller, they must have not been there on Saturday, b/c there were an absolute shit load of bootlegs everywhere.

However, I was there Fri & Saturday & Sat, & I got to meet Selma Blair, she took a piece of gum from me & said I was cute:D , & I got my picture with her & then Perlman later on.

Her & Ron Perlman were WAY cool, I'm sure those that were there know this. Ron is extremely witty & very funny. The Hellboy panel was good, but would have been so much better if Del Toro was there. It was very short & the guy running the panels was a real tool.

Aside, from some of the panels (& the clip from Resident Evil 2), overall I thought the show really sucked.

Anyone, go to see the Broken Lizard panel on Sunday? I wanted to go so bad, but had stupid girlfriend crap to do, today & I missed it.