Spring Cinema Wasteland is Coming!

Just a reminder that the spring Cinema Wasteland Movie and Memorabilia Expo is coming up on April 1-3 at the luxurious Holiday Inn in Strongsville, Ohio.

In addition to being a great place to pick up a zombie teddy bear or a bootleg copy of Unholy Rollers, the Wasteland always has a great guest list -- and there's usually a heap of regional horror-related celebrities in attendance.

Of particular interest to Dead Next Door readers this year: David Hess, the leering lead baddie in Wes Craven's Last House on the Left (Connecticut); Evil Dead (Michigan) stars Ellen Sandweiss and Theresa Tilly (Betsy Baker, unfortunately, had to cancel); Evil Dead effects artist Tom Sullivan; frequent George Romero collaborator Michael Gornick, who worked as a cinematographer and/or sound technician on Martin, The Crazies and Dawn of the Dead; actress Lynn Lowry, who appeared in I Drink Your Blood (New York), Sugar Cookies, and The Crazies; porn pioneer Radley Metzger; and Night of the Living Dead actors Judith Ridley and Russ Streiner.

The headliners this year also include director Ruggero Deodato, actor Michael Berryman, Tom Atkins, John Carl Buechler, and William Forsythe.

It's still just $20 at the door Friday and Saturday, and $15 on Sunday. Kids ten and under are free.

Fall Cinema Wasteland Guests Announced

I usually mark the arrival of Spring with a number of annual rituals -- the first official lawn mowing, blowing the soot off the grill, and making the trek up to my old stomping grounds in Strongsville, Ohio, for the Cinema Wasteland expo.

I only made a quick trip this year, just long enough to snag an autograph from Day of the Dead's Bub the Zombie, buy some stills for the book, and wolf down a pulled pork sandwich in the Holiday Inn restaurant with some of my friends over at The Extreme Society Show.

I did make time to snag a flyer for the October event, and as is often the case, regional horror fans have plenty of reasons to make the journey to Cleveland.

Topping the guest list, and back by popular demand, is the Godfather of Gore himself, H.G. Lewis, along with the star of the Connecticut-spawned I Spit on Your Grave, Camille Keaton.

Also on the bill will be Austin Stoker, veteran of both Horror High (Texas) as well as William Girdler's Abby and The Zebra Killer (Kentucky), along with his Abby co-star, Carol Speed. Evil Dead alums Josh Becker and Tom Sullivan will also be on hand.

On a completely unrelated note, we were stoked to learn that Don May and the folks at Synapse Films will be releasing three long out-of-print Hammer horror films on DVD -- Vampire Circus, Twins of Evil and Hands of the Ripper, along with all 13 episodes of the "Hammer House of Horror" TV series. That has nothing to do with regional horror films at all, except our friend Daniel Griffith -- the busy documentarian behind the upcoming K. Gordon Murray biopic, as well as the William Grefe doc They Came from the Swamp -- will be handling the extras for the highly anticipated discs. Synapse hopes to have the DVDs available by this fall.