Horror Hound is basically a Comic Con for movies from the horror genre, but it's also for those of the sci-fi (or syfy) genre as well. It's a weekend long event, starting on Friday and going all the way to Sunday and you could buy a ticket for the whole weekend, two days, or just one day. People also dress up for the convention just like at Comic Con! There always a lot of awesome costumes, but I am so uncultured when it comes to films, that my sis (Twiggy) always has to explain what they're from to me (about 98% of the time, it's sad). This was my fourth year attending the convention and it gets worse and worse every year. Not the convention itself, the convention itself is always great, it's more so the people and the people who run the Cincinnati Horror Hound.
Let me give you a little background on my Horror Hound experience.
In 2011 and 2012 the convention was held in a small hotel across from a convention center, which we always thought was dumb, but it worked well! Yeah it got a little crowded at times, but there were never enough people to make them think, "Hey, let's move across the street!" No, the convention my first two years was great. No lines going outside, you could buy your ticket when you got there (only 20 bucks!), you even had time to buy a t-shirt while getting your ticket without being considered obnoxious by the other people still in line. The lines for celebrities were never too terrible, the worst was standing in the wind for maybe... 30 minutes? to meet Sean Patrick Flanery (Connor in The Boondock Saints). But then The Walking Dead happened.
Last year was when The Walking Dead got big and that's also when they decided to finally move the convention across the street to the convention center. It was nuts. The amount of people that showed up, just for Saturday, was probably three times the size of the normal Horror Hound crowd. And it was all because everyone from The Walking Dead was there and I mean everyone. Rick, Lori, Carl, Andrea, Herschel, Daryl, Shane, and Merle were all there and it was so crowded (I may be missing a few people.) Not only was the crowd bad, but the lines. Carl and Lori's lines were like a 3 hour wait, where as Rick and Daryl's were 4 HOURS. And people actually stood in these lines! I want to meet Norman Reedus (aka Daryl) just as much as any other Boondock Saints (Murphy) fan, but we were not waiting in that line. We did meet Scott Wilson (Herschel) though! His line was not long at all! It was even shorter than Flanery's line! He was super nice and cool about being there even though he was sick.
(Left to Right: Wilson, Twiggy, Me. Thankfully I was less embarrassing looking last year.)
And then there was this year.
3 AND 1/2 HOUR WAIT TO GET INSIDE. Not to mention we had to buy our tickets a month a head of time because the single day tickets sold out already; Twiggy had to buy weekend passes for us to go (we only went Saturday) AND the ticket price went up! But the line to get in. We got there at 9 because it had always opened at 10; not this year. Nope, it opened at 11 and we didn't know that until we were already awake. Anyway, we got in line at 9. It was cold, and windy, and a 2 hour wait, which didn't bother us too much. What bothered us was when we got to the door to get in and they told us we had been standing in the wrong line. No one thought to make sure everyone was in the right line, oh no, so instead we had to wait in an even longer line for another 1 and 1/2. And while we waited in line, Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness), who was the main celebrity this year, showed up 2 HOURS LATE and was rude as hell. People were clapping and cheering him on, one person even shouted, "I love your work!" and he just blew them off! Thankfully we weren't there to see him. Hell no, we were there for David Della Rocco (Rocco in The Boondock Saints)! There were only three people in his line! I felt so bad, but it was also super nice at the same time. And I have to say, he looks good for being in his early 60s! He was really nice too!
(Left to Right: Me, Roccoc, Twiggy. We're not really that pale, I swear.)
The rest of the convention always has booths full of art, collectibles, movies, etc. and they were the same as always. We got some pretty cool stuff, but after the clusterfuck we experienced when we got there, and trying to find our way around (they had the rooms on the map labeled wrong!) we decided this was it, no more Cincinnati Horror Hound for us. It was a great run, but we are not going through that mess again.
Thankfully Indianapolis and Columbus both have Horror Hound conventions, so we shall be attending one of those two from now on! After reading this, I hope you guys not only learned about a new convention you are interested in going to (comment and let me know or if you have questions about it?), but I hope you also learned not to go to the Cincinnati convention. Trust me, you'll regret it.
If any of you went to Horror Hound this year, or any of the past years, let me know! I don't know anyone other than my sis that goes!
I'll leave you guys with this awesome cosplay (costume) that we saw this year.
Catch ya later!
-Kat
