ATLRetro

Days of the Dead will be celebrating its sixth spooktacular year at Sheraton Hotel Atlanta this Friday-Sunday Feb. 3-5. Our favorite part as always about this horror media convention is that it celebrates not just contemporary cinema but retro classics. In other words, there’s plenty to please both the gore-fan and the Famous Monsters Kid. Here are 10 of our top things to do this year.

1) LINDA BLAIR. Duck and cover before she spits pea soup on you. Seriously, though, the star of THE EXORCIST (1973), SAVAGE STREETS (1984) and ROLLER BOOGIE (1979) deserves our utmost Retroexploitation respect, and we hear she’s sweet as pumpkin pie.

2) STRANGER THINGS. Look for a quartet of young stars from this spooky sci-fi back-to-the-‘80s hit Netflix drama including Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo and Finn Wolfhard.  Get your photos signed and catch them onstage for a panel at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

3) SID HAIG AND BILL MOSELEY. Returning once more are two of the sweetest sinister guys in show businesses. Sid Haig, one of those rare B-movie icons and character actors whose career spans the decades from Jack Hill’s blaxploitation films of the 1970s to the chaotic, creepy Captain Spaulding. Hear his reflections on an amazing career Sunday at noon. Quite frankly you and Bill Moseley scared the sh-t out of us in THE DEVIL’s REJECTS (2005), and since we’re not easily scared, for that we salute you both!

4) DOUG BRADLEY. The one and only real Pinhead returns to show you such sights, interpret your dreams and tempt you with autographs.  Hear his tales of terror on the set during an hour onstage Saturday at 2 p.m.

5) PJ SOLES & LYNN LOWRY. Forget their remake replacements. These ladies won our horror hearts as two of 70s/80s swellest scream queens for their turns in the original HALLOWEEN (1978) and THE CRAZIES (1973), but to us, PJ will always be Riff Randell eating pizza with the Ramones and toppling Principal Togar in one of our favorite cult movies ever, Roger Corman‘s unparalleled ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979).

6) JOHN RUSSO wrote the screenplay for THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and appeared in it as a zombie. Need we say more?! An undead living legend.

7) THREE FACES OF JASON. Kane Hodder, Steve Dash and C.J. Graham all donned the legendary hockey mask. Hear them recall their times of terror Friday at 8 p.m. and catch them all weekend in the autograph area. Seriously though, these are some sweet dudes and you don’t have to be afraid if they blow you a kiss. Well, maybe.

8) PROFESSOR MORTE, JAMES BICKERT, MADELINE BRUMBY & THE CASKET CREATURES. Another swell thing about Days of the Dead is how it’s embraced Atlanta’s local horror talent including four of our favorite ATLRetro Kool Kats of all time. Catch punk/horror local favorites the Casket Creatures in concert Friday night at 11 pm (Kool Kat interview here). Infamous director James Bickert (Kool Kat here) leads a panel on the making of FRANKENSTEIN CREATED BIKERS (2016) with cast and crew members including Atlanta’s favorite hold-no-prisoners fightin’ Scream Queen Madeline Brumby (Kool Kat here) Saturday at 4 p.m., and the movie screens at Midnight. The Silver Scream Spookshow’s Ghost Host with the Most Professor Morte, aka ATLHorror Renaissance man Shane Morton (Kool Kat here), will be scaring it up in the exhibit area with creepy creations for sale and at The Days of the Dead ‘80s Slasher Prom Saturday night at 11 p.m.

9) SCARE-TASTIC SHOPPING.  Horror cons are the perfect place to stock up on both macabre movie memorabilia, cult classics on DVD and creepy clothing, costumes and accessories.

10) FRIGHTENING FILMS & MORE! The nonstop action includes a 48-hour film festival featuring new and classic indie horror shorts (both US and international), animation, features and con exclusives. Plus costume contests, SFX how-to panels, Haunt Acting 101, and much more!

Days of the Dead main con hours are Fri. Feb. 3 from 5 to 11 p.m.; Sat. Feb. 4 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Sun. Feb. 7 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with parties and films going late into the night on Friday and Saturday. Kids under 10 and military free. For more info, click visit the Days of the Dead Atlanta official website here.

It’s crazy how time flies and also totally terrifyingly awesome that the Days of the Dead will be celebrating its fifth frightening year at Sheraton Hotel Atlanta, this Friday-Sunday Feb. 5-7. Our favorite part is that this horror media convention celebrates not just contemporary cinema but retro classics. In other words, there’s plenty to please both the gore-fan and the Famous Monsters Kid. Here are 10 of our top things to do this year.

Splatter Cinema present CHILD’S PLAY (1987); Dir: Tom Holland; Starring: Brad Dourif, Chris Sarandon and Catherine Hicks; Tue. Jan. 8 @ 9:30 p.m. and Fri. Jan. 10 at 11:30 p.m.; Plaza Theatre; Trailer here.

By Aleck Bennett
Contributing Writer

Who could have predicted that a child’s doll would boast a career of evil spanning 25 years?

By 1988, the slasher film had seen its peak. The A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise delivered a fourth movie that fell far short of 1987’s well-received third entry. The FRIDAY THE 13TH series offered up a lackluster seventh film that attempted to pit Jason Voorhees against a distaff CARRIE knockoff. Producer Moustapha Akkad attempted to revive Michael Myers in an ineffective fourth HALLOWEEN film without the participation of John Carpenter. Meanwhile, the horror film world was looking across the pond for its new icons of terror: the Cenobites of Clive Barker’s groundbreaking HELLRAISER.

It might have seemed laughable on its face to combat this by saying, “well, what about a serial killing doll?” It’s not like the premise of a killer doll had never been done before. From the ventriloquist dummy with a mind of its own of 1948’s DEAD OF NIGHT to THE TWILIGHT ZONE’s Talky Tina, and from the possessed clown of 1982’s POLTERGEIST to the Zuni fetish doll of 1975’s TRILOGY OF TERROR, the killing machine posing as an innocuous inanimate figure was a familiar face on the horror landscape. But resting a relatively big-budgeted slasher film on the stuffed shoulders of a Good Guy doll must have seemed a risky proposition.

And in the wrong hands, it could have been. Thankfully, the screenplay was tightly executed, displaying a surprising intelligence and wit. The film finds serial killer Charles “Chucky” Lee Ray (Brad Dourif of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, WISE BLOOD and the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy) mortally wounded and pursued by Chicago homicide detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon of FRIGHT NIGHT and THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS). On the verge of death, Chucky takes refuge in a toy store and uses a voodoo ritual to pass his soul into a handy Good Guy doll. The doll finds its way into the Barclay family home, where the now-sentient doll seeks to continue the mortal Chucky’s killing spree…and find a way to get out of his molded plastic and rubber holding cell.

The film was helmed by veteran horror writer-director Tom Holland (CLASS OF 1984, PSYCHO II, FRIGHT NIGHT) with a seriousness that served as a perfect counterweight to the cartoonish possibilities that an ersatz Cabbage Patch Kid slaughtering Chicagoans might pose. And his cast of familiar faces (and voices) helped sell that premise. In particular, the sardonic performance of Brad Dourif as Chucky walked the tightrope between threatening and humorous deftly, simultaneously communicating Chucky’s thirst for violence and his recognition that being stuck in a doll’s body is almost some kind of cosmic joke at his expense.

The novel concept, combined with the effects of the incredible Kevin Yagher and Dourif’s indelible voice work, quickly established Chucky as a most unlikely horror icon, and the film spawned several sequels in a franchise that continues to this day. Filming on the most recent installment, CURSE OF CHUCKY, was completed in Fall 2012.

Wanna play? Come out to the Plaza Theatre and celebrate Chucky’s quarter-century of slaughter with a special presentation of CHILD’S PLAY from Splatter Cinema. It’s not every day a doll turns 25.

Aleck Bennett is a writer, blogger, pug warden, pop culture enthusiast, raconteur and bon vivant from the greater Atlanta area. Visit his blog at doctorsardonicus.wordpress.com