CELEBRITY GUESTS FOR FLASHBACK WEEKEND 2012
PATRICK REA
Director Patrick Rea (winner of Best Director of the 2012 Chicago Fear Fest) has taken the film festival circuit by storm with his highly imaginative studio quality short films. Rea’s second feature “NAILBITER” (“NAILBITER” is the best feature winner of the 2012 Chicago Fear Fest) tells the story of a mother and three daughters who seek shelter from a tornado in a strangers storm cellar. Once in the cellar, they quickly discover that they would have been safer facing the tornado. Do yourself a favor and don’t seek out any more information on this film before seeing it. “NAILBITER” is just that; a suspenseful, horror-thriller, edge of your seat rollercoaster ride which is best experienced spoiler-free.
Rea’s most recent shorts “Get Off My Porch”, “Hell Week”, “Time’s Up Eve”, and “Now That You’re Dead” have also garnered acclaim and are currently on the festival circuit. In the Summer of 2008, Rea’s short film “Woman’s Intuition” won a Heartland Emmy Award. In 2009, Rea was co-director on the “Jake Johanssen, I Love You” comedy special, which aired on Showtime. This past summer, SenoReality Pictures won its second Heartland Emmy Award with their short “Get Off My Porch”.
Rea and SenoReality Pictures are currently in post-production on “RHINO” starring Malcolm Goodwin (A&E’s Breakout Kings) and Keith Loneker (Lakeview Terrace). 2012 also marks the release of “NAILBITER”. Rea is currently developing his next feature, a horror comedy “BUZZ KILL” about a deadly energy drink.
JOE KNETTER
"
Reading a Knetter story makes you feel dirty...like you're some kind of sicko."
- Adam Green - director Hatchet and Frozen
"The king of all things sick and twisted is now and will always be king Knetter."
- Dread Central
Joe Knetter got his start writing horror fiction. His books Twisted Loneliness (intro by Sid Haig), Vile Beauty (intro by Bill Moseley) and Zombie Bukkake have
garnered him much attention in the horror community for being sick, twisted and
gory.
Joe then branched off into acting and screenwriting. His credits include Pajama Party Massacre, Strip Club Slasher and Monsterpiece theatre amongst others. The short film THIRSTY , based on one of his stories has won awards at film festivals across the country. He currently has over a dozen projects in various states of production including: Hallow Pointe, Black Friday, Ouija, Ash Wednesday, Visions and Meatings.
SARAH FRENCH
A.K.A. SCARLET SALEM
Sarah French is a model and actress from Minnesota. She began modeling in 2007 working steadily in print, fashion and on various websites. Her lifelong love of the horror genre led to her auditioning for the indie short Pajama Party Massacre. She got the role and loved the experience so much that she put the modeling on the backburner and decided to concentrate on film. To date she has worked on close to thirty projects such as: Terror Overload, Killer Biker Chicks, Strip Club Slasher, Camp Kill, Opposite Blood, Pottpouri, In harm's way and Shriek of the Sasquatch and a few music videos. She also writes a scream queen column in Shock Horror magazine based out of the U.K.
All celebrity guests sign autographs during Celebrity Signing hours all 3 days of the convention unless specifically noted otherwise.
LOCAL GUESTS FOR FLASHBACK WEEKEND 2012
SVENGOOLIE
Appearing Saturday August 11, 2012
Every year at Flashback Weekend we look forward to the annual visit from Chicago Television Legend "SVENGOOLIE". Rich Koz portrays the popular character each week on "The U!" with his cast of "Doug Graves" the laid back musical sidekick, and Tombstone the talking skull. In addition to the popular musical numbers and commercial parodies Svengoolie has always been known for, each show features a segment of the movie produced in Svensurround with added sound effects, dubbed-in dialogue and visuals. This technique was first done by both Koz and Bishop in the 1970's - before the advent of "Mystery Science Theatre 3000."
Svengoolie's hard work and comic genius continued to pay off and "Svengoolie - The First Year" a look back at Svengoolie's first year on WCIU was rewarded with a Chicago Emmy for Best Entertainment Program - Special. He currently has received 8 regional Emmy Awards, and was inducted into the prestigious Chicago Television Academy's 2004 "Silver Circle" for outstanding contributions to Chicago television.
Svengoolie will be signing autographs, posing for photos, and will take to the Flashback Stage for a Q & A and to MC the costume contest on Saturday. Get your costumes ready!
DANN GIRE
Flashback Weekend Master of Ceremonies
Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire has been a member of the Flashback Weekend cult since the very beginning. He serves as the president and founding director of the Chicago Film Critics Association, and has won the prestigious Peter Lisagor Award for Arts Criticism six times. (His mentor/rival Roger Ebert has won it only four times.) Gire has also been an adjunct faculty member in William Rainey Harper College’s English and Journalism departments since 1984, teaching courses in drama, film & literature, journalism, short stories & novels, mass communications and feature writing. He put both Zack Snyder's remake of "Dawn of the Dead" and the family feature "The Incredibles" on his top 10 list of best movies of 2004.
NICK DIGILIO
Flashback Weekend Co-Host
Talk Show Host/Film Critic for WGN Radio. Nick has been reviewing movies for over 23 years on WGN Radio in Chicago. He also hosts a highly-rated weekend talk show on 720am that covers everything pop culture and news related. He has also written, acted in and directed over thrity plays in and around the Chicago area including the horror classics "Among the Dead" (in which he played an insane?redneck who killed zombies) and "Operation Infiltration: An Experiment in Terror" (which was a salute to great genre films like Romero's "The Crazies" and Philip Kaufman's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"). He has LOVED horror films for his entire life and is incredibly excited to be co-hosting the Flashback Convention for yet another exciting year.
Top Five Horror Movies of All Time:
- John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN
- George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD
- Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA
- Don Coscarelli's PHANTASM
- Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
(but, of course, this list changes constantly depending on his mood).
STEVE (CAPONE) PROKOPY
Flashback Weekend Co-Host
Steve Prokopy is the Chicago Editor for Ain't It Cool News (www.aintitcool.com), where he has contributed film reviews and filmmaker and actor interviews under the name "Capone" since 1997. In 2005, he also joined the staff of the Chicago-based media outlet GapersBlock.com as the site's Friday film critic with his Steve@theMovies column. Steve has been a horror fanatic since he was a youngster, and was even suspended from high school for a day after a presentation he gave his classmates on his hero, make-up master Tom Savini. He has been a Flashback Weekend co-host since it began in 2002 and is thrilled to be back again this year.
Top Five Horror Movies:
- Sam Raimi's THE EVIL DEAD
- George A Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD
- John Carpenter's THE THING
- Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
- Herschell Gordon Lewis' BLOOD FEAST
JOHN LAFLAMBOY
THE MOLE MAN OF BELMONT AVENUE, SQUEAL, THE ART OF PAIN
John is a stage actor who trains at The Artistic Home in Chicago and co-stars in The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue with Mike Bradecich, which he also co-wrote and co-directed. He has co-produced two other feature films (The Art of Pain and Squeal). As an actor, John has fought ninjas and zombies as a lead in the feature film The Art of Pain, been killed by a Pigman in the feature film Squeal, performed the motion capture movement for the video games Stubbs the Zombie and BioShock and had very small roles in very small commercials that only his mother seems to have seen.
John is also the founder and director of Zombie Army Productions, a production company that produces Chicago’s largest haunted house (Statesville Haunted Prison &City of the Dead).
HEATHER WIXSON
Flashback Weekend Co-Host
Horror Journalist and DreadCentral contributor Heather Wixson can pinpoint where her love of the horror genre started exactly: At age three she saw An American Werewolf in London in the theater and was immediately hooked. Heather currently serves as a one of the judges for the prestigious Shriekfest International Horror/Sci-Fi Film Festival. Heather also established her own independent production company in 2009 called Final Girl Films and is currently producing several independent genre films. A Chicago native, Heather is beyond thrilled to be co-hosting Flashback Weekend this year.
Top Five Horror Movies:
- Tom Holland's Fright Night
- Chuck Russell's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
- Fred Walton's April Fool's Day
- Andrew Kuehn's Terror In the Aisles
- Scott Glosserman's Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
KITTY ZOMBIE
Chicago's favorite zombie will be attending Flashback Weekend! Unleashed upon the world by Zombie Army Productions in 2007, Kitty has become a staple of the Chicago horror and zombie scene and a crowd favorite, regularly hosting zombie-themed events like Retro Zombie Tiki Terror and Plague Day at the Faire. With the body of a killer and the mind of a puppy, Kitty is a particular favorite of the little ones, as he brings a Herman Munster-like quality to what would otherwise be a terrifying physical presence.
To find out more about Kitty, visit KittyZombie.com
CHAD SAVAGE
Chad Savage has been drawing and painting disturbingly beautiful things his entire life, and his love of all things dark & spooky has become a career unto itself. His dark visual design company Sinister Visions inc. has spawned a series of genre sites including ZombiePinups.com and the DarkChicago.com series of sites (ChicagoHorror.com, ChicagoZombie.com, ChicagoVampire.com and HauntedHouseChicago.com). Savage has run art shows for Convergence, the World Horror Convention, Flashback Weekend and HorrorFind Weekend, and is the Marketing Director for Flashback Weekend and The Zombie Army.
Sinister Visions inc. is an official sponsor of Flashback Weekend, and will host/sponsor the Costume Contest and Zombie Pinups Beauty Pageant on Saturday at 2012's Flashback Weekend - details HERE!
To learn more about Chad Savage and his work, visit SinisterVisions.com and ChadSavage.com.
Check back for more updates!
Celebrity guests subject to change without notice
due to unforseeable filming/scheduling conflicts.
Custom Search
