By Mike Lera
Kicking off the year with fear, CREEP I.E. CON 2025 certainly crept it real Jan. 31-Feb 2 with its usual entree of horror and gore, a terror-ific package of gruesome cosplay, monster merch and pop culture icons to include stars of the new Terrifier 3, the Scream franchise, and cast member reunions from the classics Re-Animator and The Lost Boys. Held at The Ontario Convention Center in California’s Inland Empire (hence “I.E.”), CREEP I.E. CON has now entered its third year, and like any good horror franchise, it has certainly “raised the stakes” in the fine art of spookiness.
Jon Bernthal (Walking Dead, The Punisher), Tobin “Jigsaw” Bell (Saw series), Jason Patric (The Lost Boys) and Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson were just a few members of CC’s honored guest list, mixing and mingling with fright fans and posing for V.I.P. photo ops.
Art the Clown took center stage, of course, Terrifier 3 actors Krsy Fox, Margaret Anne Florence, Antonella Rose and Mason Mecartea assembling at a panel with groupies and discussing (or should we say “disgusting”) behind-the-scenes shenanigans, their favorite kills and their collaboration with director Damien Leone and actor David Howard Thornton, aka Art the Clown.
“I slowly got to know Damien and David over Instagram because my two-year-old daughter got really obsessed with Art the Clown,” Fox recounted. “Damien had seen some films I had done, reached out to me and said, ‘I want you to be Jennifer! It’ll be the Drew Barrymore in Scream moment!’ I was like, ‘How bad is it?’ And he’s like, ‘Ohh, it’s brutal’. I was in!”
Ghostface voice Roger L. Jackson joined actress Marley Shelton for an interactive Scream Q & A and reflected on the popular (almost) 30-year series. Reminiscing over the late, great Wes Craven, Jackson said, “He was a real gentleman. When they’d call ‘Cut’, I’d watch him working with the actors, and he was always particular in the kind of direction he would give them. He was always very much present and he knew what they needed. I was honored to sort of become a voice go-to for him, because he hired me for other projects of his as well.”
Commemorating its 40th anniversary, Re-Animator reunited actors Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton and Bruce Abbott, as well as producer Brian Yuzna and composer Richard Band for a talk about the 1985 horror-comedy and their experience working with director Stuart Gordon.
“Stuart was steadfast in his vision and had great faith in it,” stated Combs. “He would therefore fight others’ opinions of his work. Until he was shown that maybe there was a better way.”
Art’s Sideshow stood out as another “treat bag” at CC, a walk-through mini-museum of horrors that included life-size/life-like mannequins and set displays from The Nun, Saw, Fright Night (1985) and The Lost Boys.
In celebration of the Valentine “love month”, a cool photo op booth with Stephen King’s Carrie invited guests in as the telekinetic, creepy chick’s “prom date” while scenes from the 1976 movie played on a large screen.
Freaked out for missing CREEP I.E. CON 2025? No need for self-burial – CC’s evil twin, Aftermath, will be held in September at The Ontario Convention Center. Be there!
(All photos are property of Mike Lera)
