Jonny Numb

Given my radio silence for the month of December, it seems fitting that, with the clock winding down on the holiday season, I’d find a Christmas-related tale to tell.

The first horror convention I ever went to was Horrorfind Weekend, which was held annually at the Hunt Valley Marriott in Maryland until moving to the Gettysburg Wyndham in its final years.

Since 2004, I looked toward each Horrorfind with eyes sparkling like a cat’s when it hones in on a shiny Christmas ornament. Between extracting a stack of cash from the ATM for celebrity autographs and the various wares for sale in the vendors’ room, it was like the blissed-out holiday gift I gave myself.

The interesting thing about attending a con each year is noticing the changes – good and bad. By 2009, the attendance at Horrorfind had thinned out, which I attributed to a lighter guest roster lacking the “name” stars that populated previous editions. (It bears noting that the venue switch to the Gettysburg Wyndham the following year carried one of their best – and most voluminous – guest lists.)

The 2009 Horrorfind was also the only one I attended solo.

Thinking back, I can’t remember what led me to travel down to Hunt Valley on a Saturday by myself…probably force of habit more than anything.

Nah, that’s not entirely true…Margot Kidder was one of the guests, and even back then, I held the character she played in 1974’s Black Christmas in high regard as one of the greatest characters in the annals of horror cinema.

Based on the YouTube video below, this also appears to be the year Danny Trejo was a guest. (For a several-year period, I took the collage-like poster for Rob Zombie’s Halloween to every con, getting most of the actors who participated to sign (even Adrienne Barbeau, whose scenes didn’t make the final cut).

But there was something kind of sad about the Grand Ballroom and the wealth of open space among the showgoers and the reduced quantity and caliber of celebrity guests (looking back, I do regret not meeting Bruce Campbell – who had no line while I was there). Corbin Bernsen, Derek Mears, and Jason Mewes were also in attendance.

When I approached Ms. Kidder, I was met with at least two tables’-worth of photos from her extensive filmography. To this day, I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen five – Sisters, The Amityville Horror, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, To Catch a Killer, and Black Christmas. (No, I haven’t watched any of the Superman movies from beginning to end.)

I was a bit taken aback by the quantity, but scanned the selection and found what I considered the best representation of Barb Coard – holding the telephone while talking to the obscene phone-caller while Phyllis (Andrea Martin) and Jess (Olivia Hussey) look on in the background.

For the 2 minutes or so I was at her table, she made small talk about the blazer I was wearing, to which I told her it was a thrift-store find; she talked about all the great things she’d found at second-hand stores over the years.

When I presented the glossy for her autograph, she signed in gold ink, stating it would “look really good” set against the image. And it did.

While our time together was brief, I felt a certain kinship with Ms. Kidder – she seemed genuinely interested in speaking to her fans, and not just treating the convention like a mercenary assembly line to pocket some easy cash.

This was before Twitter and Facebook became the social-media monoliths they are today, where every Christmas brings dedicated fans like myself out of the woodwork to celebrate one of the true reasons for the holiday season: listening to Barb drink, smoke, talk smack, and alienate herself from her sorority sisters before getting stabbed to death with a crystal unicorn.

What an apt metaphor, as Barb is one of horror’s unicorns, and Kidder’s iconic performance burns itself into your brain for all time. I’m glad she shared it with us.