Flashback Weekend Chicago Horror Con 2023
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Actress Casey Hartnett and stunt performer and actor Lee Waddell spoke to me via Zoom before the convention.
Both interviews are below.
Casey Hartnett is an actress.
To listen to the interview with Casey Hartnett, click the play button below (or click here to open the audio player in a new tab/window).
Lee Waddell is a stunt performer and actor.
This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
To listen to the interview with Lee Waddell conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, click the play button below (or click here to open the audio player in a new tab/window).
Casey Hartnett, Lee Waddell, and others will be appearing at Flashback Weekend Chicago Horror Con 2023.
Flashback Weekend Horror Con will be taking place at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare Chicago in Rosemont, Ill. on Friday, August 4 through Sunday, August 6, 2023.
Tickets and more information are available on the Flashback Weekend website.
Mike Reflects
Flashback Weekend was the first horror centric convention I attended, back in 2012.
I had no easy way of getting there that weekend, but I so desperately wanted to meet John Carpenter and Scout Taylor-Compton that I walked a few miles to the local train station to get downtown, then a mile or so to the CTA station to get to the train to Rosemont, then another mile or so in Rosemont from the station to the hotel where the convention was being held. All in the Chicago August heat and sun.
When I finally got there, my nose was so freshly sunburned that I looked like Rudolph. Even worse, the lighting in the ballroom was such that it really showed up in the pictures.
My goal at that time was to get pictures with John Carpenter and Scout Taylor-Compton that I could later get signed by each, as both, at that time (oh, how times have changed!) were doing free pictures with autograph purchases. So I didn’t have anything for either to sign, as the autograph was, for one of the few times in my life, ancillary.
For John, that meant an 8x10 from They Live, which was one of the handful of options sold by a vendor adjacent to his signing table.
For Scout, it meant one of the picture that I thought looked cool from a role of hers I hadn’t seen, as she didn’t have a picture from my favorite.
But I got my photos with each (sunburned nose and all).
For my birthday one year, a friend took the photo of me and John Carpenter, got a 4x6 print done, and mailed it to him to sign, which was really nice and pretty cool.
That still left Scout, though. She didn’t sign mail and seemed to take a break from conventions shortly after that one.
Then she was announced for another local horror convention at the end of 2019. And, to make it even better, that convention was right across the street from another convention I was planning to attend anyway.
And this time, I was ready. In addition to an 8x10 print of the 2 of us together, I had a full sized poster and a (separate) 11x17 mini poster from my favorite role of hers—a rom-com that she did that was much bigger in Europe than it was over here.
As it was my first time handling anything bigger than 8x10 at a show, and because I was at the show by myself (acting as my own pack mule), I decided to get everything done separately.
I don’t like fiddling around in the lines (it’s not fair to anyone) and I had too much to handle. So my plan was to sit in the hotel lobby, get out one of the posters, take it into the show, get it signed, return to the lobby, put it away after the marker dried, get out the other poster, go back, get it signed, do the same thing, then end with the 8x10.
When she saw the first poster, she was surprised. As I said, it was way more popular in Europe, and she didn’t think she’d signed one since the movie premiere.
On the second trip, she was, again, surprised, but it was only logical that I’d get both poster variations done, right? That way, I didn’t have to pick one.
When she saw that I returned for the third time, she asked what I had for her this time, adding that I’d had the most unique stuff she’d seen at that convention so far. I replied that I’d saved the best for last, and handed her the photo.
Now, I think I look pretty much the same through the years. But I seem to be alone in that regard, given the reactions I tend to get when I have these types of pictures signed, as though I’d pulled a random photo of them and some guy off the Internet. And Scout was no exception.
In this case, though, I also think it’s fair to cut her a bit of slack, as she was likely expecting another thing from that movie, and so it threw her through a loop. But once she recognized herself, and showed her tablemate how different she used to look, I heard the unmistakable starting syllables of “Who’s this guy next to me?” before it clicked.
She looked at the picture.
Then back at me.
Then back at the picture.
Then back at me.
Then at the picture again.
Then back at me.
It was like I was selling Old Spice. (How’s that for a deep cut?)
Her eyes widened a bit and said “I remember this! I remember you!”
I didn’t have the heart to ask if that last thing was good or bad, so I just pointed out that it was 7 years before in the same ballroom we were currently standing in.
As we took another picture, all those years later, the same 2 people in the same hotel ballroom, we joked about Modern Family’ing it.
We didn’t, but I kind of wish we had.