Creep I.E. Con 2024 - Highlights
Creep I.E. Con kicked off its third horror convention (not counting Aftermath in September) at the Ontario Convention Center on February 2nd through the 4th. The guests were even bigger this year, the weather was perfect, and records were broken as far as attendance. I attended all 3 days so it was a fun weekend reuniting with friends, meeting new ones, and sharing experiences with fans of different shows and movies who were waiting in lines to meet their idols. This year, the convention brought out the cast and some of the crew of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Sons of Anarchy, Scream and more.
Convention walkthrough with Lee Waddell
I had the honor and privilege of being invited out as “Media”, but I had also bought “VIP” so I was double prepared for the madness that is, Creep I.E. Con. On Friday, they offered early registration where you could pick up your badges between noon and 3pm. I took advantage of that. Before the con opened at 5pm, I paid a visit to my convention buddy, Lee Waddell. Lee was a guest there along with his other Scream co-workers Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy and Skeet Ulrich. He asked me to shoot some stuff for him for his social media so we went around the vendor floor and spoke to some of the vendors. We stopped by Small Town Weirdo’s booth first. They make some really cool apparel that is all hand painted from shirts to denim jackets to custom pieces. I own one of their “Final Girl” shirts and I can say it is very soft and comfy. I highly recommend it. They’re an all inclusive company and they have something for everyone. A lot of what they have is Scream themed, but they do other movies too. The second booth we stopped at was the Chilling App which is a streaming platform for independent horror filmmakers to showcase their work. I love the idea of helping indie filmmakers get their work out there. Horror fans love horror movies, so you can never watch too many of them. We ran into Art from Art’s Sideshow. They had an exhibit at the convention showcasing their cool displays and figures. I loved that they had real actors in there to bring the scenes to life. The last person we hit up was Sammy Ruiz Art. He does a lot of graphic work for Lee Waddell. He is a talented artist who makes some pretty cool horror art. By the time we got done visiting vendors, the doors opened to the public and I stayed in the vendor hall to say hi to my friends at Toxic Doom Studios. They make cool metal shirts that are sci-fi/apocalyptic/horror theme. I saw some fun cosplay as well. Most of the cosplay was on Saturday, so I missed a lot of it because I was in lines all day. I sent my dad out to go take some photos for me. These were some of the people he spotted:
Jamie Kennedy
I wandered into the arcade at one point to check that out. They had 80’s style arcade games you could play for free and some photo ops. I went to the autograph hall to grab some b-roll of Lee signing for fans in case he might want that footage. As I’m standing behind his table filming I hear Jamie Kennedy next door yell, “You have a camera person?!” That made me laugh. I got in Jamie’s line to see him. He asked me what I was filming and I told him. I also told him about my video I did on the Queen Mary since I know he likes haunted stuff. I gave him a “Ghost Hunter” friendship bracelet because he was on a few episodes of Jack Osbourne’s paranormal show so I was like, “You’re officially a ghost hunter now.” Jamie is easily one of my favorite people and I have a lot of favorite people but still, he’s always worth it to go see. The lines for Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich were pretty long for it being a Friday so I knew come Saturday once Neve Campbell and David Arquette arrive things would be a little hectic.
Saturday I got in early and camped out in Neve Campbell’s line. She was only there that day, so I had to make her a priority. I’ve also never met her before so I was excited. When I met her I was so enamored with her that I couldn’t think of what to say aside from “I love your work” and “Thank you for coming out here.” She asked if I wanted a quote and we ended up going with “Not in my movie.” The alternative was “Don’t fuck with the original”, but I felt like I connected more with the first one. It felt symbolic like, nobody can write your future but you and that’s the energy I’m trying to put out there for 2024. Neve was very sweet and I didn’t want to tell her things she has heard a thousand times, so I kept it simple. Since I was first in line for Neve, I was able to hop into Matthew Lillard’s line. A lot of people in his line had met him before and we were kind of talking about how he’s such a nice person for creating these memorable experiences for people that it makes us keep coming back for more. Essentially we’re greedy is what we are. I will own that. He was amazing as always. About a year ago I made him a Beadle and Grimm’s friendship bracelet I had been meaning to give to him but then a couple months before the convention I decided to also make one for his friend/business partner Bill Rehor. He’s one of the co-founders of the company and the host of Matthew’s show, Faster Purple Worm Kill Kill. I thought to myself, everyone only thinks of Matt when they think of these things. I want to make one for Bill. Matthew’s reaction was exactly what I expected it to be. He was like, “The fact that somebody thought of Bill is amazing. He’s going to be so fuckin’ stoked.” I also told Matt that I saw him at Fan Expo Denver and told him that what he said to me then meant a lot to me. He asked if I was going back this year and I said “Probably not” but you never know. I don’t think they have announced the guest list yet. All in all, it was really nice seeing him again. He’s one of very few people you meet where you automatically feel loved and accepted and not judged. After Matt, I got into David Arquette’s line but his line was pretty long. I waited for like an hour and a half and the line didn’t move at all so I got out of line. I had to line up for photo ops in 45 minutes, so I knew I wouldn’t make it to the front in time.
At this point, the autograph hall was getting very packed full of people. You could hardly move. They closed the doors and tried to kick some people out because it was becoming a fire hazard. A lot of people were not happy about that. General admission people didn’t stand a chance this year, so I understand where their anger and frustration was coming from. I felt like this problem was a combination of overselling tickets and first time con goers not having a plan and were blindsided because of it. I’ve been to a lot of conventions, so for me, I know nothing is ever a guarantee. Nobody is entitled to meet and greets with an admission ticket. If your heart is set on somebody, buy a photo op. Despite the crowd problem on Saturday, I will say Creep I.E. Con so far has done a good job at fixing problems for future cons. This year is no different. They’ve only been around since 2022 and it exploded after that, so I can’t hold this against them. They will hopefully learn from this and make it even better next year. I also noticed there were not only a lot of first time con goers, but people who were in line who didn’t really know the person they were in line for. I thought to myself, this is not the right con to just casually attend when it’s a sold out weekend. You’re taking up space for diehard fans who have been waiting their whole lives to meet these people. No hate to those people, but I just thought that was odd. There’s always room for new fans. Just don’t be “Googling” them while you’re in line.
Enough about the drama. It was time now for photo ops which consumed the rest of my Saturday. I had a solo photo op with Matthew Lillard, a solo op with David Arquette, and then a trio op with Neve, Skeet and Matt. I have to give a huge shoutout to Pose Photo Ops. I remember years ago I was somewhere doing photos with this company and it was disorganized and kind of a mess. Cut to 2024, they were amazing. Photo ops stress me out because there’s a lot going on, there’s a schedule that’s always changing, different rooms you need to be in, etc. They had a guy with a headset making announcements every couple of minutes which I thought was super helpful. They had a lot to deal with just with the Scream cast alone because there were solo ops, duo ops, trio ops, and group ops. They had to queue people and then people who arrived early queued in another area. I had time to kill between ops so I stayed upstairs where the room was. Because I wasn’t downstairs where the announcements were being made, I went over and asked a Pose worker if I could start lining up for my group and they said yes. Everyone upstairs and downstairs were on the same page and gave the same answers which is rare at conventions. I also saw the photographer retake photos when somebody blinked in it which was nice. I mean it’s a lot of money, so you want the perfect photo but I just appreciated how organized they were this year. Once my photos were taken, I was very happy with the final products. I went back downstairs and there was a queue outside the autograph hall just to get into the hall. I grabbed some food, took a break at my hotel room and toward the end of the con headed back over to see if things had died down. It did a little bit, but lines for Matt, Neve and David were super long. I grabbed some shots of some of the other guests like Ron Pearlman, Doug Jones, Emilio Rivera, Jessica Rothe, Bonnie Aarons, Adrienne Barbeau, Tobias Jelinek, and Larry Bagby. Charlie Hunnam was there but he also had a huge line so I didn’t get a good look at him through the sea of people. The convention closed at 6pm but I heard some of the Scream cast stayed until 8pm to finish their lines. That always impresses me when they do that. They don’t have to but they do.
It was now Sunday morning and I was determined to get David Arquette and Skeet Ulrich. I camped out in David’s line. A YouTube friend of mine (@fonso13) had a buddy hold my spot in Skeet’s line for me so I could just hop into that line after which was nice of him. I noticed a lot of people getting autographs for other people who weren’t able to and helping each other out in the lines. It was really sweet to see the horror community come together. Horror fans are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. I met David and I gave him a Bozo the Clown friendship bracelet that I made him and he loved it. I told him I heard he was making a Bozo the Clown documentary and he said they are in the finishing stages of it right now. I also told him I enjoyed his other documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette and that it was very inspiring. He was really sweet. I built up the courage to ask him if he’d like to do a video shoutout for my Creep I.E. Con video and he said yes, so that made me really happy. He nailed it. I’m beyond grateful he took the time to do that. I got into Skeet’s line and even though this was my third time meeting him, I never know what to say to him. It’s hard when people come up to them and tell them the same thing over and over again. Fortunately, I had just seen the movie Blood that he was in. It came out last year. It’s a super creepy movie. I talked to him about that and then he began telling me how the hotel they stayed at while shooting the movie was haunted. Him and Michele had super creepy ghost experiences there. I love talking about haunted stuff, so when he started giving me all the details I was like, oh my gosh I’m intrigued. Do tell more. He was great, I love Skeet.
I ended Sunday kind of early because my feet, back and arms were killing me from hauling my camera gear around and standing in lines. I made another sweep through the vendor hall and checked out the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reunion. I saw Daniel Pearl, Ed Guinn, William Vail, Teri McMinn, John Dugan, Ed Neal and Allen Danziger. I am so mad at myself for not meeting Daniel Pearl. The cinematography in Texas Chainsaw Massacre was so ahead of its time and my favorite thing about the movie. I would have loved to talk about cameras and framing with Daniel. From what I heard from people who had met the cast and crew, they said they were all super kind and friendly. I really hope they come back knowing what I know now because they seemed like a great group of people. I wished I had gotten a better glimpse into the Sons of Anarchy world, but they were all in that crowded autograph hall. I don’t personally know anyone who met the cast, so I’m hoping those that did will share their stories.
All in all, I had an amazing time at Creep I.E. Con 2024. Even with the hiccups, the energy there was very light and positive. It warmed my heart to see people emotional whether it be happy tears or constant smiling because they just met someone they’ve looked up to for years. At the end of the day whether you believe it or not, this convention is for the fans and I look forward to what’s in store next in September when they do Creep I.E. Aftermath.
