With the close of summer and soon, the close of Drive-In Theater season, one is reminded of those brisk fall days when Creature Double Feature had its most profound impact. The eerie look of the trees as the leaves fall lent itself to the scary monster films that CDF offered on a Saturday afternoon. Matt Sanborn and Aaron Chauncey, stalwart members of the CDF message board, led the charge in bringing to us a bigger and better Creature Double Feature Roundup this year! On Saturday, September 24th, 2011, at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel in Norwood, MA, Matt and Aaron brought together a cavalcade of great vendors and speakers. Families showed up in droves to get together, peruse the eclectic vendor items, talk with artists, writers and actors, and gather together in the movie room to watch monster movie clips, presentations, and two classic CDF films!
Matt and Aaron worked very hard over the past few months (almost at great personal cost) to put this convention together! But their passion for Creature Double Feature, the driving force behind much of what I do as well, pushed them through to the end and great success. It was nice to meet the local fans, many of whom brought their children – the next generation of Monster Kids! Personally, I also got to see several friends that I hadn’t seen in over 20 years, as well as meet Message Board friends that I have known for almost 10 years, but hadn’t met in person before. It was like a reunion of sorts and, for me, was the heart of the whole event!
The people involved were also great including: Mike Howlett, author of the Weird World of Eerie Publications; Kaiju artist Bob Eggleton, whose stories of great horror/sci-fi TV of the past I could sit and listen to endlessly; Brian Harnois, ghost hunter extraordinaire, who has a new show “Haunted RI” had some fascinating and frightening tales of his experiences; DJ Robert Jaz who held everything together with deft use of music and sounds; and of honorable note are author Ethan Gilsdorf and artist Christian White, without whom this event would not have been 100% tops! And let us not forget the
incredibly hot Wendy Lizotte who came in at the last minute to be the Roundup’s official Horror Hostess, and most likely the next in line to inherit Elvira’s mantle as queen of the Horror Hostesses!
It was an incredible experience that really just showed the enduring power that a local TV station’s movie program from thirty plus years ago has over the local audience. CDF endures because it comes from a time when we didn’t have DVRs and the internet, and if we missed the films, we may not have seen them again. Its local flavor made us all feel like we were part of a bigger family, and it was great escapism from the doldrums of everyday life. CDF will last for generations to come as long as passionate people like Matt and Aaron continue to spread the word and help families share warm memories with their own children!
