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| Welcome to Creep I.E. Con! Photo by Brett Homenick. |
On Saturday, February 1, I made my way to Ontario, CA, to attend Creep I.E. Con. I first became aware of this convention through WetMovie1's YouTube channel. What particularly amused me about WetMovie1's videos on the subject was his uncertainty about how to pronounce the name of the convention. (Is it supposed to sound like "creepy," or is it literally just said "Creep I.E." as written?)
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| Dinosaurs invade Creep I.E. Con! Photo by Brett Homenick. |
For those of you not in the know, the I.E. is the Inland Empire, essentially the area of Southern California east of Los Angeles. The name of the convention is sort of a mixture of "creepy" and "I.E.," but the wordplay is admittedly a bit awkward, so I can certainly understand WetMovie1's confusion.
As for the convention itself, I was rather underwhelmed. I'm just not into modern horror films, and I don't enjoy the stuff from the '80s or '90s enough to attend an entire convention about it. Most of the guests weren't that appealing to me, and the majority of dealers were selling things that simply didn't capture my attention.
Elvira was by far the biggest draw at the convention, and her line seemed to go on forever. Jason Patric attracted a healthy amount of fans, and it looked like a few other guests made a tidy profit, too. Former WCW pro wrestler Vampiro had been announced as a guest, but I didn't see him anywhere. (Pretty disappointing, seeing as how he was one of the few guests I was interested in meeting.)
I wandered around for a while and just wasn't seeing much of interest. I finally did see a display of dinosaur statues that was pretty cool, and I was glad I'd finally found something to take pictures of. The rest of the convention wasn't much help in that regard.
I decided I should meet one guest before departing, and the choice for me became rather clear -- Barbara Hershey. Having starred in such movies as The Right Stuff (1983), The Natural (1984), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Falling Down (1993) -- on top of being nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Portrait of a Lady (1996) at the Oscars -- her career was by far of the most fascinating to me among the guests. (It's also worth noting that her appearance at the convention wasn't advertised on the show's website.)
I told Ms. Hershey about the time when I lived in Japan that I revisited The Right Stuff during the New Year's holiday (which, if I recall correctly, was during the 2022-23 holiday season) and was impressed all over again with what a great film it was. Ms. Hershey was very polite but seemed a little detached. If I'm being honest, I had much more fun meeting the guests at the recent Hollywood Show, who showed more enthusiasm for what they were doing.
Speaking of the other convention, I ran into producer David Sterling again, who recognized me from the Hollywood Show. When I met him there, another person recognized David at the same time I did, so we happened to approach him at the same time.
David asked me about my "friend," but I laughed and said I had no idea who he was at all and that it was just one big coincidence. Afterward, I asked David about his work on Reptisaurus (2009) and The Amazing Bulk (2010), so we had a nice chat about those titles.
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| With actress Barbara Hershey. |
David told me about what it was like working with director Christopher Ray on the former and about the number of YouTube reviews of the latter, which apparently attract millions of views. I did ask David if he had ever seen Red Letter Media's review of The Amazing Bulk, but he was unaware of it.
Overall, the highlight for me was finding a booth selling '90s-era monster mags, things like Scary Monsters and Cult Movies. I picked up a couple of issues of Scary Monsters, as well as a pair of Godzilla fanzines from the mid-'90s that I probably hadn't seen in almost 15 years.
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| With producer David Sterling. |
I also purchased a Blu-ray of Night Train to Terror (1985) at the same booth, so I certainly did pretty well for myself there.
I'm not sure yet if I'd attend the next Creep I.E. Con. I do think there are better alternatives out there (at least for me), but it's always fun to get out every once in a while and have some fun.
