Although the Cinema Wasteland convention was first held in Strongsville, Ohio in the fall of 2001, I didn’t catch word of it until the fall 2006 edition, by which it was so popular that there were two shows being held every year: one in April and one in October. I was drawn to the place in ‘06 because I’m a massive fan of the Friday the 13th franchise, and they had assembled most of the guys who had played slasher icon Jason Voorhees. There was no way I could miss this – I had to get all of their signatures in my copy of the book Crystal Lake Memories!
I did, and it was awesome... and by the time I walked out of the guest and vendor room, I had fallen in love with everything about Cinema Wasteland. A celebration of the horror genre and specifically of the grindhouse / drive-in era, this place felt like a home away from home for me. It booked guests that I truly cared about and was interested in meeting, and not just from major franchises like Friday the 13th. This is a place where, sure, you could meet Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers actors (and Jason’s mommy, Betsy Palmer), but you could also cross paths with the likes of Gunnar Hansen, Reggie Bannister, Bill Hinzman, Tom Sullivan, Sid Haig, Michael Berryman, Ken Foree, Camille Keaton, Lynn Lowry, Lou Perryman, Lloyd Kaufman, Charles Band, Jeff Lieberman, Jeff Burr... the list goes on and on, and even includes vintage porn stars. This was a place that revered classics like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Phantasm, etc. just as much as I do. I’ve never been a sociable person, but it still felt great to be surrounded by hundreds of people that loved these movies like I do. I had some experience with that, as I had been attending theatrical horror marathons in Columbus, Ohio every October since 2001, but this was something on a whole other level.
For me, the actors listed above are some of the greatest stars who have ever lived, and even though I have social anxiety, I enjoyed getting to meet them and to be in their presence. And to get them to sign things for an affordable price. Autographs at Cinema Wasteland tended to be just $20, which I still believe should be the average price for an autograph.
I became so enamored with the Wasteland that, as of the fall 2009 show, I started booking a room in the venue (at the time it was a Holiday Inn, then it became a Best Western) and spending the entire weekend at the show, attending various panels and movie screenings. I have documented several of those weekends here on Life Between Frames – and there was a time in my life when I would have been certain that I would continue attending every show and probably spending the whole weekend at every Cinema Wasteland for the rest of the convention’s run.
But life takes some unexpected twists and turns. In 2016, I started missing the spring shows due to other commitments. Then my mom passed away in May of 2017 and everything fell apart. Instead of spending the weekend at the fall 2017 show, I could only manage to drive to Cleveland and spend seven hours hanging out at the convention. Soon after that, I had to leave my beloved Ohio behind and move to Tennessee. When I wanted to return to Cinema Wasteland in the fall of 2018, I caught a ride with Life Between Frames contributor Jay Burleson, whose movie The Nobodies was being released at that time and would be available for purchase at Cinema Wasteland on the Troma table. He and a couple other friends picked me up in Tennessee on the way to Ohio from Alabama. The following year, Burleson was too busy to go to Cinema Wasteland with me, so I caught a solo flight back to Cleveland.
When I left the fall 2019 edition of the show, I was certain that I would return to another Cinema Wasteland in the future. But life keeps taking those unexpected twists and turns. I haven’t been back to Cleveland in seven years – and even though I was still holding on to hope that I would return to Cinema Wasteland someday, it’s not to be. This week, Wasteland founder Ken Kish announced that the show has come to an end.
The plan had to been to cut down to one show a year, making it an April-only event, but the cost of putting on the show has been rising, along with the price of plane tickets for guests, while attendance numbers have been dropping. So the decision was made to just wrap things up after an amazing 25-year run.
This is one of those things that rattles a person to their core. Although it has bothered me that I have missed so many shows, it was always comforting to know that Cinema Wasteland still existed, and I would pay attention to what was going on there even when I was thousands of miles away. But to know that the convention won’t exist anymore is deeply troubling. It feels like a massive loss. The world needed this raucous celebration of horror and exploitation classics. It had it for a good, long while, and now its absence will be felt in the hearts and minds of the fans for the rest of their lives.
My anxiety did cause me to keep to myself during my weekends at Cinema Wasteland, but I did have the chance to interact with a handful of fellow fans during my time there, including cosplayer Jason Siegel, horror hosts The Mummy and the Monkey, grindhouse scholar 42nd Street Pete, filmmaker Henrique Couto, and more. We won’t be seeing each other in the guest / vendor room of Cinema Wasteland anymore, but I hope to cross paths with them again someday.
I’ll always miss Cinema Wasteland, but the Cinema Wasteland spirit will live on within myself and the many fans who spent some of the best weekends of their lives there. As the legendary Joe Bob Briggs likes to say, the drive-in will never die. That goes for the grindhouse, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment