There is a moment, somewhere around the second aisle, when you stop noticing that the man beside you has horns.
He is seven feet tall in the boots. There are chains on his coat. His beard reaches nearly to his waist and he is waiting, very politely, for his turn to pay. Nobody looks twice. And once you have stopped looking twice as well, the convention has got you, and there is not much point pretending otherwise.
Frightmare in the Falls takes over the Niagara Falls Convention Centre from Friday October 23rd to Sunday October 25th. Over a hundred thousand square feet of it. They call themselves Canada’s biggest celebration of horror, and having looked at what they have lined up, I am not going to argue.
First, I need to talk about the mugs
Photo: Frightmare in the Falls
Because this is the part nobody warns you about. You come for the celebrities and you leave with a ceramic mug shaped like a screaming corpse, and you have absolutely no regrets about it.
The vendor floor is artists. Sculptors, painters, mask makers, people who have spent a year on a single piece and will happily tell you about the glaze. There are filmmakers and authors with tables. There are collectors who will talk you through a shelf for twenty minutes and mean every word of it.
It is, genuinely, one of the better craft markets you will find in this region. It just happens to be full of monsters.
Then the people they have brought in
Twenty-five guests announced so far, and the list reads like somebody raided a very good video shop. Peter Weller. Barbara Crampton. Jim Beaver, Mark Pellegrino, Richard Speight Jr. and Julian Richings. Chandler Riggs, Seth Gilliam and Cooper Andrews. Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys, Jonathan Stark. Ari Lehman, Adrienne King, Ron Millkie, Amy Steel. Damon Herriman, Brian Van Holt, Lauren Lavera, Elliott Fullam.
If those names mean nothing to you, stand still for a moment. Somebody will explain. At length. With feeling. That is rather the point of a convention, and it is the bit I find genuinely lovely about this one. Their own site says it is a place where fans become family, and that sounds like marketing until you watch two strangers discover they own the same obscure poster.
And everything in between
Film screenings. Panels. Photo ops. Immersive exhibits that are built to make you jump and will succeed. A cosplay competition where the standard is so high it becomes slightly unfair on anyone who assembled their costume the night before.
Bring a bag. Bring cash for the artists. Wear something you can walk in for six hours, because you will.
The practical bit, briefly
Friday the 23rd runs 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday the 24th is the long one, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the busiest. Sunday the 25th is 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the calmest of the three, which is my quiet recommendation if you would rather talk to somebody than stand behind forty people.
The Convention Centre is at 6815 Stanley Avenue, walkable from most of the Fallsview hotels. One thing worth knowing: Sunday the 25th is also the Niagara Falls Marathon, which is sold out across every distance. The city will be full, the roads will be busy that morning, and breakfast will be shared between runners in compression socks and a man dressed as a Victorian undertaker. Book the room early.
Staying the weekend? Build the trip → · More October: Halloween in Niagara → and This Month in Niagara →
