I have to confess that my favorite part of G-Fest is checking out the amazing models created by fans and put on display during the weekend. I had tried my hand at it a couple of years too but found out that I am better off sticking to writing as opposed to model-making. This stigma, however, is a personal issue, as ALL ages and skill levels are not only welcomed but encouraged here.
I was thrilled when I heard the news that Svengoolie will be appearing at this year’s G-FEST in Chicago! For those less savvy in the Godzilla world, “G-FEST” is short for Godzilla Festival and for fans of Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, or any other facet of Kaiju (Japanese giant monster) cinema, this is the event for which we revolve our calendar around. As a life long fan of Godzilla, I was happy when my 6 year old son, Alex, took to the Big G. We attended our first G-FEST in 2004 and I haven’t missed one since!
It is unlikely that any regular reader of this blog has not, in some way, been touched by the work of the great American writer, Ray Bradbury. The Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy writer was truly one of us; someone who never outgrew his childhood love of dinosaurs, monsters, and aliens all the way until his death, yesterday, at the age of 91. The Internet is now rife with tributes and retrospectives of his amazing life and I have enjoyed reading a few. In that regard, I don’t feel that there is anything I can add. Instead, I am going to go all “Oprah” on you and list my Five Favorite things that he did. And, no, I will not be giving away free cars and merchandise, so you can remain seated and relatively calm. Also, this is not to suggest that in the course of Bradbury’s prolific career and multitude of accomplishments, that I ONLY like five of them. To go through them all would be like creating another Horror Host Report and this blog has only room for one of those epic posts per week. Here it goes…
This past weekend I took my 7 year old son, Luke, to the “Discover the Dinosaurs” show at Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illnois. The venue was just across the street from The Crowne Paza Hotel where the quintessential Godzilla festival, G-FEST, takes place each July. Actually, the two have much in common as dinosaur fans and Godzilla enthusiasts are often one in the same. The Big G is, after all, a dinosaur that’s been mutated by atomic power (no, not an iguana, I’m not talking about the Tri-Star version).
I have been a giant rubber monster fan for as long as I can remember. I have so many fond memories of Saturday and Sunday afternoons watching the latest exploits of Godzilla or Gamera as they fought the newest monster foe bent on destroying the Earth. The one creature feature that always stood out though as the coolest of the Japanese giant monster movies was DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, from 1968. The funny thing is though, that as a kid, I never remembered the plot of the movie; I just remembered the last 15 minutes or so that featured the very best of what Toho had to offer in an over-the-top monster battle.
While it was the National Horror Host, Svengoolie, who is indirectly responsible for bringing the Daves together as friends, it has always been our stance that TERROR FROM BEYOND THE DAVES was really the bastard child of the 2010 Vampira Tribute and SCARY MONSTERS MAGAZINE. In reality, the two are complimentary of each other. Within the pulpy pages of the world’s only “REAL Monsters Magazine,” classic monsters as well as Horror Hosts have always been featured side-by-side. And why shouldn’t they be? For many of us adult Monster kids, it was the classic commercial hosts who introduced us to all the greats be it Godzilla, The Universal Monsters, the films of Hammer Studios, the wonderful “B” movies of Roger Corman, as well as those from directors who were slightly…ahem…less gifted.
