Attending Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend in Orlando was delightful, yet disturbing. Food & Wine Weekends led me to the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek last weekend for a delicious experience. Central Florida is a hub of activity and taking place that same weekend was the horror fest. Typically, I would not have attended but my Sarasota friend Vi was attending in an effort to shop her screenplay and since she invited me to tag along I figured, why not?
Rats! I Forgot the Fake Blood
By no means am I an expert in the realm of horror and reading a Stephen King novel is about as spooky as I get. Indeed, walking toward the hotel’s convention center I realized I had forgotten something. Fake blood! Horns! A crossbow! This con was definitely a photographer’s dream as many attendees were extremely creative in their costume construction.
What’s in this horror season? Zombies! And zombie killers. Along with vampires. And spooky clowns with perpetual evil grins. (Freaky!) Werewolves are still in (I’m forever Team Jacob, re: Twilight reference) and I saw the most adorable little werewolf baby. At first glance I thought it was REAL! Even touching it I thought it was real but alas, it’s a silicone creation by a talented artist. See the photo below, isn’t it cute?
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Vendors in the exhibit hall ranged from edible to wearable to wondering, why would you want that on the mantle? I’m talking about taxidermy mice and bats. Not the kind the Tampa Bay Rays swing, the kind with wings. Yeah, not my thing.
I did find a pair of white, fuzzy ears and pink horns for my Halloween costume. Well, not sure if you call it a costume. Along with my everyday street wear, I’ll be wearing them for Halloween. I also picked up ghoulishly good pottery pumpkin from artist Catherine Galgano of River Mud.
Outside in the parking lot I got the heebeegeebees looking at all the hearses. Some were quite clever with their accessories, such as zombie mannequins and psychotic gnomes. There was even a vehicle made with a coffin.
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Vi and I attended a session for authors and although I have no plans on penning a horror novel, I would like to write something someday and this panel was extremely beneficial and inspirational. One of the authors on the panel was Michael Leonard. His passion for his fantasy book and being a writer was contagious (in a good way) so I decided to pick up his book Ryvah – Plight of the Fairies
Not sure if I’ll find myself at another Spooky Empire but at least I can now say I’ve attended Florida’s largest horror fest. View additional images on Flickr.
Happy Halloween!
