CELEBRITY GUESTS FOR 2013
All guests will appear all three days of the convention EXCEPT:
- Svengoolie: Saturday Only
- Denise Crosby: Saturday & Sunday Only
- Charles Band: Friday & Saturday, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm Only
The Green Goblin ??? The iconic movie prop from “MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE”
Courtesy of Tim Shockey of Hollywood Prop Collector
LOCAL GUESTS FOR FLASHBACK WEEKEND 2013
SVENGOOLIE
Appearing Saturday August 10, 2013
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!
J. ANTHONY KOSAR
Syfy's Face Off: Season 4 Champion
FACE OFF Season 4 Champion J. Anthony Kosar specializes in Fine Art, Illustration, Sculpture, and Special Effects through his company Kosart Effects Studios, LLC. On FACE OFF, the biggest competition for Make-Up FX on the Syfy Channel, Kosar won 6 of 11 Spotlight Challenges, setting the record of most consecutive wins in a row and most wins by a single contestant on a single season. Of his Spotlight wins, he won the DC Superhero challenge where his winning character "The Infernal Core" appeared in the DC comic JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #16, and also won the DEFIANCE challenge where he shadowed the FX make-up crew on set in Toronto, Canada. In 2007, he interned at legendary Stan Winston Studio creating effects for INDIANA JONES 4 and James Cameron's AVATAR. Kosar designs and sculpts Halloween masks, creates special effects for theater, film, and commercials, and teaches the Art of FX through his studio in Westmont, IL. Besides FX, Kosar designs and sculpts prototypes for toys, collectibles and medical anatomical models, illustrates for novels and comic books, curates art gallery exhibitions, and creates his own fine art paintings and sculptures. His paintings have appeared in Watercolor Artist Magazine and SPLASH: Best of Watercolor, and his sculptures have appeared in SPECTRUM: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. Kosar was Valedictorian of the class of 2008 at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, IL earning his BFA in Illustration. Visit Kosar's Website: www.kosarteffects.com
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
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
JOHN BOROWSKI
H. H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer, Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation
John Borowski is an award winning independent filmmaker whose works have garnered international acclaim and are distributed internationally on dvd, television, and streaming. Borowski’s “historical horror” trilogy of documentary films focus on late nineteenth and early twentieth century serial killers.
In 2004, Borowski’s independently produced first film, H.H. Holmes: America’s First Serial Killer, was released. Holmes received an unprecedented amount of press and acclaim, From 2005-2007 Borowski produced his second film, Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation, which has been called “one of the most disturbing films ever made.”. Albert Fish was released on DVD in 2007 and the world premiere screening was held at the historic Vine Theater in Hollywood.
The worldwide appeal of Borowski’s fanbase was reflected in numerous projects in 2010 including being featured in the books, Murderabilia and True Crime Collecting (Published in the U.K.), and The Documentary Moviemaking Course. Also in 2010, Borowski was the associate producer on Chilean filmmaker Patricio Valladares’ feature film, Toro Loco.
Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance, Borowski’s third feature documentary film, was released on DVD October 23, 2012 and is now also available for streaming worldwide at the official film site. The film features John DiMaggio (Bender from Fox’s Futurama) as the voice of lifelong criminal and murderer Carl Panzram. For the film, Borowski underwent a process of unprecedented research which included filming at the maximum security prisons of Leavenworth Penitentiary and Clinton Correction Facility as well as filming Panzram’s handwritten autobiographical papers at San Diego State University. Panzram was awarded the director's choice award at the 2012 Chciago Horror Film Festival.
In 2013, Borowski's films were screened in Paris France and he was featured in Psychology Today and U.K.'s Bizarre Magazine. Currently, Borowski is producing several films, including the documentary Serial Killer Culture, which focuses on musicians, filmmakers, authors, and collectors who are inspired to create and collect art based on serial killers.
Visit his website at http://www.johnborowski.com
JOHN EVERSON
John Everson is a staunch advocate of the culinary joys of the jalape??o and an unabashed fan of 1970s European horror and exploitation cinema. He is also the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of seven horror novels, including the 2012 Bram Stoker Award-nominated erotic horror tour de force NightWhere and the film-optioned “Mermaid meets Fatal Attraction” story of Siren. Other novels include the occult horror tales of Covenant, Sacrifice, The 13th and The Pumpkin Man and the upcoming bio-terror novel Violet Eyes, a modern Kingdom of the Spiders. Over the past 20 years, his short stories have appeared in more than 75 magazines and anthologies, and his work been translated into Polish, Italian, Turkish, and French. His short fiction has been collected in the books Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions, Vigilantes of Love, Needles & Sins and more. His novella “Love Less” appeared last year in IDW’s shared world anthology V Wars, edited by New York Times Best-Selling author Jonathan Maberry, and Amazon.com contracted him this spring to write a Vampire Diaries tie-in story to help launch the new Kindle Worlds platform. He is a former newspaper reporter, music critic, and columnist and the founder of the independent press Dark Arts Books. For more information on his fiction, music, and digital art, visit John Everson: Dark Arts at www.johneverson.com.
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).
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 is a dark artist/designer and the owner of Sinister Visions inc., a dark visual design company that caters to the horror, Halloween & haunted attraction industries. Besides providing branding, art and websites for hundreds of haunted houses around the world, he manages a series of genre websites including ZombiePinups.com, PumpkinCult.com and the DarkChicago.com series of sites, and is the Art & 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 - details HERE!
To learn more about Chad Savage and his work, visit SinisterVisions.com and ChadSavage.com.
JIM SORFLEET
Jim Sorfleet is the owner of SnS-Photo located in Chicago. Jim has been creating visually stimulating images professionally for over five years and his portrayals of the eerie and macabre has been described as disturbingly titillating.
His work has been featured in numerous gallery shows including those at Horrorbles in Berwyn and the 1901 Gallery in Chicago. He is an internationally published artist whose magazine credits include features and covers of Gothic Noir Magazine, Dark Parlour- Magazine and others. His work has graced the covers of fine novels such as Electric Angel by Author Sue Dent, Indiana Horror 2012 by James Ward Kirk and Train Gone Sorry by Melissa Skyer.
SnSPhoto (Jim Sorfleet) is the official event photographer for Flashback Weekend.
To find out more about Jim and SnS-Photo, visit his website at www.sns-photo.com.
Check back for updates!
Celebrity guests subject to change without notice
due to unforseeable filming/scheduling conflicts.
