HORRORSHOW

The convention pickings have been slim for Buffalo horror flick fans, who have had to travel two hours—to attend either the Eerie Horror Film Festival in Pennsylvania or the FanExpo Canada in Toronto—to get their fill of B-film celebrities and merchandise. Last year, Tom Kowalski, the proprietor of Rotten Jack’s Creep Shack, a Halloween and horror “boo-tique” located on Transit Road in Depew, stepped up to the plate to host Rotten Jack’s Creep Show, an all-night celebration of horror entertainment, haunt merchandise, and bands with a predilection for the dark side.

“I started Creep Show, in part, as a way of bringing more exposure to the Western New York area businesses, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and personalities,” says Kowalski. “And I wanted to create a much more interactive atmosphere than your typical horror convention, more of a horror party.”

Seven hundred fans attended that premiere event, and this year Rotten Jack’s Creep Show 2 promises to be a grander affair, thanks to the marquee value of its headliners: Gunnar Hansen, who portrayed the psychotic “Leatherface” in Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Tony Moran, who essayed “The Face” of Michael Myers (as opposed to “The Shape,” portrayed by another actor) in John Carpenter’s equally classic Halloween.

“Bringing larger-than-life cult horror icons like Leatherface and Michael Myers to the Western New York area makes me confident that this will be an event horror fans won’t want to miss,” says Kowalski, who plans to extend the Creep Show to two full days in 2009. “I feel Buffalo has the opportunity to be the next hotbed of horror, much like it was with music a few short years ago. We’ve also added a few films this year, which people said they wanted.”

“I think it’s great,” says Hansen of the attention he continues to receive from horror fans as Texas Chainsaw nears its 35th anniversary. “It’s still hard to believe that people want to meet me, that I have been involved in something that is still remembered all these years later. I never dreamt that Chainsaw would become what it became. I never saw that it would enter the culture the way it has. I’m proud that I was part of that.”

To what does the actor attribute the film’s long-lasting appeal, even after three poorly received sequels (none of which he appeared in), a remake, and a sequel to the remake?

“First, the movie was very new in its approach. It was not polite. At the time, most horror movies had these moments when the audience knew they were safe, that nothing was going to happen: We cut to a scene in Washington, DC. The Capitol dome is visible in the window, the actors stand around a desk and talk. And the audience knows it can take a breather, because the monster is somewhere in the Arctic. Chainsaw was not like this. In Chainsaw the audience was kept in suspense—something terrible could happen at any moment. The result was that the audience was put through a wringer.

“Second, the movie was disturbing without ever being graphic. The audience never saw anything—and as a result they were convinced that they had seen everything. People come up to me and ask why the special effects in the sequels were never as good as in the original. When I say it is because there are no special effects in the original, they deny it and start to list the things they saw.”

Moran offers a similar explanation for Halloween’s longevity: “What Carpenter really nailed was the suspense. He kept teasing the audience, and there was no blood, except for a dry cut on Jamie Lee Curtis’s arm in one scene. And that mask, what a brilliant idea! They bought it for like $1.89 and customized it.”

Moran balked when his agent originally suggested he take the Myers role. After all, his sister, Erin, had already achieved fame as Ron Howard’s sister, Joanie Cunningham, on TV’s Happy Days. “The last thing I wanted was to be in a low-budget horror film. I only did it because I thought nobody would see it!” When the film became a hit, he “went underground” and took a job in the mortgage industry, only to resurface on the convention circuit a few years ago, after the editor of a horror Web site tracked him down and convinced him fans were clamoring to meet him.

“Rotten Jack’s Creep Show will continue to grow in the hope of garnering national attention as a premiere entertainment convention,” says Kowalski. “As attendance grows each year, I hope to contribute even more to the economics of our area by providing tourism opportunities.”

“Tommy’s committed to bringing together some of the biggest names in horror and supporting the local scene at the same time,” says local filmmaker Jason Mager, whose new short The Pigman will be among the Creep Show’s cinematic offerings.

Hansen and Moran will be joined by another fan favorite, “scream queen” and Fangoria Radio co-host Debbie Rochon, who has appeared in more than 150 films, as well as fellow screamer Melantha Blackthorne and Rue Morgue magazine publisher Rodrigo Gudino. Creep Show will be held this Saturday night, September 20, at the Town Ballroom, 681 Main Street; doors open at 5pm. For a complete list of guests, bands, and ticket information, visit rottenjacks.com.

Greg Lamberson will celebrate the launch of his new horror novel, Johnny Gruesome, at Rotten Jack’s Creep Show 2. The novel will be available in bookstores October 1.