Creature Feature Weekend 2024

The end of April brought the return of Creature Feature Weekend to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Our last foray to the Wyndham Gettysburg involved a concert from Tim Cappello, the saxophonist no one who has seen Lost Boys can forget. The man is legend, his boundless energy matched only by the enthusiasm of the visitors and staff who came together to share the weekend. 2024 was no different.

For those who have never attended a horror con, it is not a sullen affair. Cons are filled with the passion of people who travel the country to first make, and then share their work – and the fans who join them to experience it. That work might be a new movie or book, or it might be horror-themed fudge, or even the Silence of the Jams tea, which comes from the actual house filmed in the The Silence of the Lambs. (Yes, there is still a well in the basement, and, yes, you can spend the night there.) The faces of the people at Creature Feature Weekend show the same mix of excitement and anticipation that you see on people walking through the gates at Magic Kingdom.

The movies at Creature Feature Weekend 2024 included labors of love and lifelong passion projects. Maybe the best example is The Mutilator 2, a movie forty years in the making. Buddy Cooper, the director, explains in the following interview from the con how he always intended to make a sequel, but spent the last few decades practicing law and running the family business. Through the years he stayed in contact with the stars of his cult classic first film, and never gave up his dream that someday they would finish the sequel.

In fact, if it weren’t for the Covid 19 pandemic, we likely would have seen original villain Jack Chatham reprise his role. He only bowed out post-Covid because he turned ninety-six, but even that didn’t stop him from making a brief cameo.

Buddy Cooper Interview

Many of the movies screening at Creature Feature Weekend are in search of distribution. That is the case with The Mutilator 2 and also with A Town Called Purgatory, this year’s Best Feature Winner, and a mesmerizing trip into the post-Civil War era…with a horror twist.

It was my pleasure to meet writers and stars Dan De Luca and Ken Arnold, and the movie delivered such a punch that I couldn’t resist sharing my thoughts the moment I got home.

No sullen affair at all, Creature Feature Weekend rises again at some point each year, sometimes in the summer, sometimes in the spring, but so far we’ve always been able to catch it at the Wyndham Gettysburg. The food isn’t just good, it will make you remember your favorite scary movies while you eat it, and the weekend-long movie screenings will help you find your next guilty pleasure. And none of that mentions the opportunities for face-to-face meetings with horror icons through the years (this year included the legendary Bill Moseley and the women from the original Evil Dead).

Check out their website; they stay active throughout the year, and maybe next year, I’ll see you there!