The convention pickings have been slim for Buffalo horror flick fans, who have had to travel two hours—to attend either the Eerie Horror Film Festival in Pennsylvania or the FanExpo Canada in Toronto—to get their fill of B-film celebrities and merchandise. Last year, Tom Kowalski, the proprietor of Rotten Jack’s Creep Shack, a Halloween and horror “boo-tique” located on Transit Road in Depew, stepped up to the plate to host Rotten Jack’s Creep Show, an all-night celebration of horror entertainment, haunt merchandise, and bands with a predilection for the dark side.
“I started Creep Show, in part, as a way of bringing more exposure to the Western New York area businesses, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and personalities,” says Kowalski. “And I wanted to create a much more interactive atmosphere than your typical horror convention, more of a horror party.”
Seven hundred fans attended that premiere event, and this year Rotten Jack’s Creep Show 2 promises to be a grander affair, thanks to the marquee value of its headliners: Gunnar Hansen, who portrayed the psychotic “Leatherface” in Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Tony Moran, who essayed “The Face” of Michael Myers (as opposed to “The Shape,” portrayed by another actor) in John Carpenter’s equally classic Halloween.
