International Horror Hotel Film Festival

 Just returned from the horror film fest. 

Viridian Lake won 1st place in the Horror category. Trapped at an isolated mountain resort, a small band of survivors struggle to escape when a primeval entity oozes out of a lake and consumes everything and everyone in its path. Weekend recreation turns into a desperate run for survival. 

Wolf Con won 3rd place in Creature Feature, An old school Montana cop chases a murderer, who witnesses describe as a zombie werewolf, into a Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention.

George Clooney Saves the Universe won 1st place in SciFi. A space alien disguised as a movie star must get human earthlings to help him save the Universe.

The festival was in Cleveland.

Big city on the banks of a Great Lake. It's funny that I have a script about a lake that crawls ashore and starts melting people, because once we were in town, I kept asking, "where's the beach?" 

I live just over a hill from a pretty wonderful lake. 

But I'd never been to a Great Lake. I wanted to wade in a Great Lake. Multiple Uber drivers told me that if I dipped a toe into Lake Erie, I'd lose my foot. But at least the river wasn't on fire anymore.

As close as I got to a Great Lake.

In spite of locals teasing about Cleveland's environmental history, they were proud of their city and I thought it was pretty cool. We took in the touristy sites when the festival wasn't running movies.

One of the perks for the winners was an opportunity to have a table read of a scene or two from the script. The actors were all great. We had a little audio problem as there was a horror movie playing in the next room. A few lines got lost under the neighboring scary music, but I heard enough laughs to make my day.

Here is a link to the table read via You Tube as it's too big for blogger. :P 

George Table Read

Sunday night was the award ceremony. There were awards given that hadn't been previously announced. Best of each category. And Best Overall for each category. And ... 

won Best Feature and was Best Overall Script Champion! 

What can I say? Laughs and applause are far from my career normal which is usually sitting in front of computer playing with imaginary people.

I had fun in the city. Met a bunch of people who create, admire and watch scary movies. Pitched a director  without melting into a puddle of goo. Listened to an audience enjoy my work. 

All things considered, a weekend that will be hard to top.

And then I came home.

Regarding COVID while traveling -- my first trip anywhere in three years. It was a mixed bag as some were masked and most were not. Flight attendants all were masked. I masked up in the plane and in crowds once in Cleveland. Cleveland's Natural History Museum was the only place that required masks for entrance. It's a whole new world out there.