Sinister Creature Con: Horror Journalism, Linda Blair and ‘The Exorcist’

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I meant to post about Sinister Creature Con a couple weeks ago but several other events came up. This convention for all things of the horror genre occurred Saturday and Sunday the weekend of June 16^th at the Scottish Rite Center in Sacramento. I only attended Saturday and was preparing swag up to the minute I had to leave the house for the con. Although this con that occurs twice a year in Sacramento--once in the summer, once in the fall--honours both mainstream and indie horror artists, it caters to the latter most of all. It’s an event where indie writers and artists like myself can find support and encouragement that we often don’t get elsewhere.

In the Dealers’ Room

Sinister Creature’s dealers’ room on Saturday was mostly filled with the arts and crafts of indie creators, most of who work in the horror genre. The work on display and for sale included everything from paintings of famous movie monsters to handmade goth jewelry to horror authors selling their books. I didn’t have a sales table for my books likeI did with Sac Con back in October of last year. The closest I got to that was putting out copies of my promotional bookmarks, for The Fool’s Illusion and “Circa Sixty Years Dead”, on the swag table. Other than that, this one I just wanted to enjoy and meander around admiring other people’s work. I saw a lot of neat stuff there and talked to fellow artists, writers and journalists about both mine and their work. But one of the most useful highlights of the convention for me was a panel on journalism for the horror genre.

Horror Journalism Panel

The panel on horror journalism was hosted by San Francisco TV horror host Lord Blood Ra [link] and consisted of three journalists of the genre. Some of the details of this panel that impressed me most was when one of the panelists, a Michelle Nessk who owns indie publication Blood Shed, said that there is no monetary payment in her work as a horror journalist. She said that instead there is a cost for the love of helping other artists of the genre.

One of the major themes of this panel was artists supporting fellow artists especially at the indie level. This makes a lot of sense because we indie artists don’t have the commercial support that big studios and publishing companies give to their artists, whether filmmakers or writers. So we have to build each other up and promote each other. Guest-blogging is one way we do this. Guest-blogging gets our names exposed to more people than does simply blogging on our own sites. And, as one person at the panel said, indie horror journalism is not so much about the money as it is the love of the genre.

In light of that, I don’t write for free in most cases. Yet, I don’t make a livable income off of the money I do make from my writing and so I have to depend on a day job. Still, I keep writing regardless of what I’ll make because it’s the art that keeps me going. The art keeps my alter-ego of a day-life from wearing me out completely and making me nothing more than a damned work machine to serve the bigger machine, that bigger machine being our nation’s economic system. That’s why I never took a technical writing job for a financial company or some such business. I write horror, sci fi and fantasy and write about those genres as well. So, writing in and about the speculative genres is kind of like a religion for me. It’s my spiritual food of a sort more than it is a means of monetary or other material gain. It may have even exorcised me of some personal demons.

Linda Blair and ‘The Exorcist’

Even though the focus is on local artists and filmmakers, Sinister Creature also features a few mainstream movies and their actors. One of the special guest celebrities that weekend was actress Linda Blair of The Exorcist. Her autograph table had a line of fans that trailed fifty feet down a corridor from the central lobby and winding to the left twenty feet more! And it was like that the whole time I was there which was from about 1:30 PM to when I got out of the above mentioned panel just before 4 PM!

I’m not a big fan of The Exorcist films. However, because the first movie, released in 1973, is a classic and started a whole craze of demon-possession movies that in part even continues through today (e.g. The Omen, The Manitou, The Exorcism of Emily Rose (no relation to the blogger . . . I don’t think)), I watched the movie when I got home that evening. It was the 25^th Anniversary Special Edition which I have a copy of on VHS (but it’s also on DVD). I had picked it up about a year ago but never watched it until that evening. In fact, that was the very first time I saw it. I guess movies of that sort are a little too close to home for me, “home” being my Catholic boyhood. But the “mile-long” line I mentioned inspired me to see it.

Linda Blair does a really great job playing Regan, the pre-teen girl who becomes possessed in the movie. The film, based on William Blatty’s novel of the same name, as a whole was made really good and definitely got the awards it deserved. It’s known to be one of the scariest movies ever. However, it didn’t creep me out as I was expecting it to but then maybe that’s because I had watched the making-of-it, included in the 25^th Anniversary Edition video, before watching the movie. It was really interesting the way they made the film. They made it in some ways where what you may think was only acted out in the movie was actually real! I won’t go into details so as not to create any spoilers. But it’s definitely worth checking out.

Sinister Creature Con, a locally based convention for Sacramento, is a great event to socialise with your fellow indie artists as well as meet those celebrities of the horror genre who inspired you. Do you find support in fellow horror, sci fi and fantasy artists and fans when you attend cons of these genres? Have you seen The Exorcist? If so, how scared were you by it? Please feel free to leave your answers in the box below.

Until next time . . .