Christmas Arrives Early at 2026 Flashback Weekend!

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Before Svengoolie and crew arrived on Saturday (see my last post), I had a small window of time to get some autographs. It wasn’t a race, as I already made plans to return that Sunday with my son, but I figured I’d do what I could. Most of the celebrity guests were charging extra for selfies, and I have a rule that I never pay for those (a rule I recently broke but held true for Flashback Weekend.  The items I was primarily interested in getting signed were vinyl, and a few were even tied in with who I was planning to meet at what was then the upcoming Chicago Fan Expo, just two weeks later. I’ve always liked vinyl for its vibe and bought a decent turntable setup a couple of years ago. It’s an eclectic collection, but I do have a lot of soundtracks, mainly from horror films and from boutique companies like Waxwork, Terror Vision, or Mondo. Like many of my fellow horror fans, I draft and budget a plan before any event: mapping out whom I want to see and what I specifically want signed from them, rarely deviating from it. This time I’d make an early exception.

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Robert Englund Toasts Svengoolie at Flashback Weekend!

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(Continued  from my last post) 

Don Johnston and I greeted the crew as they pulled into the hotel’s private parking lot. Accompanying Svengoolie were his Executive Producer, Jim Roche; Associate Producer, Ella Larschield; camera person, Korey McElligot; and social media specialist, Jennifer Vlad. After being stuck in near-standstill traffic for 90 minutes (due to the Lollapalooza Festival taking place in Chicago’s Grant Park),  they looked as if they were ready to kiss the ground upon exiting their cars.

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Flashback Weekend: Ozzy Rules…and so does Physical Media!

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This past Friday, I arrived in Rosemont, Illinois, at 11:30 am – just in time for a convention apocalypse. Sharing the dates of Flashback Weekend was another event -the National Sports Card Convention. This mammoth affair took place next door to Flashback’s Hyatt Regency at the Donald E. Stephens Center, ensuring all area hotels were booked and visitor parking critical. I ended up down the street in the CTA lot before hoofing it over. No worries, I had plenty of time to kill before the event opened and the arrival of national TV horror host, Svengoolie. As in previous years, I was asked to assist him and his crew, mostly on Saturday during his signing.

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All Monsters Attack 2025: Three Godzillas in Chicago!

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Last weekend, I attended my first Chicago All Monsters Attack convention, an offshoot of Days of the Dead. This made perfect sense because I’ve seen fewer days as dead as this one. The show was at the Crowne Plaza in Rosemont (right across the street from my last adventure, Nightmare Weekend), which coincidentally used to host the similarly themed G-FEST (Godzilla Festival). After attending G-FEST for over twenty years, my eldest son, Alex, and I were curious how they’d compare.

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Svengoolie’s Celebrity C2E2 Saturday

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Svengoolie’s Saturday morning at C2E2 matched Friday, though things didn’t go as smoothly with the autographs. A convention crew member erred in capping the line, inadvertently creating two separate ones. Once discovered, it was impossible to distinguish late arrivals from the new ones, leaving us no choice but to alternate between the two. Fortunately, this only angered a couple of people, which I consider a minor miracle. 

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“Popcorn” SteelBook Freshly Popped from Synapse!

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Having graduated Class of ’89, the early ‘90s heralded my transition into adulthood. Although I had a job and was attending community college, those hedonistic days were also spent partying and having drunken horror movie marathons with friends. Although we may not have had any trouble staying dry, the same couldn’t be said for our entertainment. The golden age of slashers seemed to disappear as fast as our teens with trips to the video store yielding fewer and fewer results. Needless to say, any ‘80s-style horror stragglers were a welcome sight and today’s SteelBook Spotlight is a prime example. Whether the film’s charismatic masked killer or its “movie within a movie” homage to ‘50s sci-fi films, Popcorn made for an unexpectedly fun night back in 1991. And now, nearly three decades later, it’s been given an upgrade.

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