TVSquad

Ah, there's nothing like an entertainment convention to bring out the freaky, the obsessed, and the just plain weird. Such was the case at the Chiller Theatre winter convention, which was held in Secaucus, NJ this past weekend. Probably the smallest of the three Chiller conventions (there's one in the summer and "the big one", around Halloween), this one still had it's share of sci-fi and fantasy nuts floating around, especially in the dealer area, where there were tables with Japanese anime action figures, fake samurai swords, tons and tons of movie imports, sci-fi toys in the original packaging, and lots of black t-shirts.

(A good example: I went with my buddy Roger, a Chiller veteran. While we were there, he found out that one of his friends bought some rare Japanese monster toys for $23,000 at the show. Another guy dropped $5500 on a single monster toy. The people who go here are hardcore, to say the least.)

But what has always intrigued me about this convention are the celebrities that attend. Unlike Star Trek or other show- and genre-specific conventions, Chiller usually gathers fallen celebrities from all over the entertainment spectrum. That is what brought me to the convention on Saturday.