The Flint Horror Convention will celebrate its third year in October, and it's returning with more scares and fun.
The convention will be in downtown Flint at the Masonic Temple, 755 S. Saginaw St., from noon till 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19.
Like the last year's event, the Horror Con will present costume contests, merchandise vendors, celebrity guests who have appeared or stared in classic horror films, films and artists.
Headlining celebrity guests include John Amplas (who starred in "Martin" and played in "Day of the Dead"), Debbie Rochon (an actress who appeared in "Tromeo & Juliet"), Mike Mundy (an actor from the AMC series "The Walking Dead"), Tom Sullivan ("The Evil Dead"), and paranormal lecturer John E.L. Tenney. The guests will have sessions where they speak to attendees about their experiences working on the films or in
Other guests include musician Lucifer Fulci, comic artist/writer Mark Bloodworth, Flint actress Jasmine Lassiter who appeared on "Oz: The Great and Powerful," and William McHugh, who made a film entitled "Screamer" about his home-based haunted house.
Like last year, the convention will use three floors of the building. One floor will have screenings of nine hours' worth of movies filmed as close as Holly, Flint and Detroit, and as far as France and Spain. The two other floors will be used to host vendors selling a variety of items like books, films, art, posters, toys and more.
This year will also include the new Petrifying Pin-Up contest, a combination of a pin-up contest and a costume contest where participants dress as some of their favorite female horror characters. The winner will be crowned the "bride of Flint."
Celebrity guests at last year's event included Cleve Hall, a special effects/make-up artist and actor who starred on the SyFy series "Monster Man," and Ari Lehman, who played Jason in the first "Friday The 13th" film.
Chris Ringler, a Flint Horror-Con committee member, said that last year's event attracted about 750 attendees. Ringer, a horror author, started the idea three years ago after getting an unexpectedly high return from filing his taxes.
He wanted to invest the money into his writing career, so he figured he could either take his work to an out-of-state convention or build a scene to help horror authors and enthusiasts in Flint.
"I thought the dividends would pay locally, and the idea of creating something like this with my friends really drew me," Ringler said.
Since last year's convention, he and other committee members have built in-roads to get Michigan haunted houses like Pontiac's Erebus and Flint's St. Lucifer's Haunted Asylum as sponsors. The convention is also mentioned in Fear Finder, a state-wide go-to guide for haunted houses that Ringler said distributes about one million copies.
Sponsorships and advertising with the right places are important for the convention's success, Ringler said. The constituency is out there--all that events like Flint Horror Convention, the Zombie Walk and the Vampire Walk need to do, he said, is reach and satisfy them.
"There are a lot of fans of horror in this region, and we want to bring that community together," he said.
© 2013 mlive
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