CELEBRITY GUESTS FOR 2021
Unless otherwise noted, all celebrity guests will be appearing all three days.
Tobin Bell cancelled due to work commitment.
Nancy Stephens cancelled due to other commitments.
LOCAL GUESTS FOR FLASHBACK WEEKEND 2021
SVENGOOLIE
SVENGOOLIE FBW 2021 SCHEDULE
Saturday, July 31
- 1:30PM – Celeb photo-ops
- 2:00PM – 3:30PM – Autographs and table photos
- 4:15PM – 5:00PM – Svengoolie hosts the Sinister Visions Costume Contest
Every year at Flashback Weekend we look forward to the annual visit from Chicago Television Legend "SVENGOOLIE". Rich Koz has portrayed the popular character since 1979, and is now seen nationally Saturday nights on the Me-TV network, as well as on CW26. Also featured are "Doug Graves" the laid back musical sidekick, Tombstone the talking skull, and Kerwyn the prehistoric rubber chicken , along with Sven’s popular musical numbers and commercial parodies wrapped around films from the classic Universal Studios library.
Svengoolie/Rich Koz has received 8 regional Emmy Awards, and was inducted into the prestigious Chicago Television Academy's 2004 "Silver Circle" for outstanding contributions to Chicago television. He has won the national Rondo Award as ‘favorite horror host’ numerous times. His original TV coffin is on display permanently in Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.
DANN GIRE
Flashback Weekend Master of Ceremonies
Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire has been a member of the Flashback Weekend cult since the very beginning. He serves as the president and founding director of the Chicago Film Critics Association, and has won the prestigious Peter Lisagor Award for Arts Criticism six times. (His mentor/rival Roger Ebert has won it only four times.) Gire has also been an adjunct faculty member in William Rainey Harper College’s English and Journalism departments since 1984, teaching courses in drama, film & literature, journalism, short stories & novels, mass communications and feature writing. He put both Zack Snyder's remake of "Dawn of the Dead" and the family feature "The Incredibles" on his top 10 list of best movies of 2004.
STEVE PROKOPY
Flashback Weekend Co-Host
Steve Prokopy is the chief film critic for the Chicago-based arts outlet Third Coast Review. He is also a regular contributor to SlashFilm.com, Backstory magazine, and the Music Box Theatre's website. For nearly 20 years, he was the Chicago Editor for Ain???t It Cool News, where he contributed film reviews and filmmaker & actor interviews under the name ???Capone.???.
Top Five Horror Movies:
- Sam Raimi's THE EVIL DEAD
- George A Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD
- John Carpenter's THE THING
- Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
- Herschell Gordon Lewis' BLOOD FEAST
JASON PAUL COLLUM
Our friend Jason Paul Collum has been part of the Flashback Weekend family since our very first convention in 2002!
Celebrating 25 years in the film business, Jason Paul Collum is the writer/director of the popular horror documentaries Screaming in High Heels: The Rise & Fall of the Scream Queen Era (NBC), Something to Scream About (Showtime) and Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacres (Shout!Factory). His October Moon and October Moon 2: November Son created the first gay-themed horror franchise in history. He has also authored books like Assault of the Killer B's: Interviews with 20 Cult Film Actresses and Basements, and has written for magazines like Fangoria, Femme Fatales, Cinefantastique, Instinct and Exploitation Nation. He is presently in production on Mark of the Devil 777 and the non-horror documentary Everything I Need to Know I Learned from The Letter People.
Jason’s acclaimed 2011 documentary “SCREAMING IN HIGH HEELS” will be screened in the Flashback Weekend screening to celebrate its 10th anniversary!
JOHN LAFLAMBOY
THE MOLE MAN OF BELMONT AVENUE, SQUEAL, THE ART OF PAIN
John LaFlamboy, founder of Zombie Army Productions, has been producing award winning haunted houses, events, films, and theatre for the past 20 years in Chicagoland. His theatre and film background give him the foundation to create massive interactive haunted attractions that leave the audience feeling like they had just walked through a live horror film. His production of Statesville Haunted Prison has been a nationally ranked attraction and holds the distinction of being the most critically acclaimed haunted house in Chicago history. His latest creation, HellsGate Haunted House, is his dream project and the culmination of 20 years of haunted house experience. “HellsGate, it’s not just a haunted house, it’s an adventure!” says John. When he is not working in the halls of his haunted houses, he is on stage as an ensemble member of The Artistic Home Theatre and working on independent films in Chicago. If you want to learn more, go behind the scenes of the haunted house industry with John and his Zombie Army crew with the reality web series DaysOfTheLivingDead.com - new episodes drop this Fall!
JOHN BOROWSKI
John Borowski is an award winning independent filmmaker and author whose film works have garnered international acclaim and are distributed internationally on numerous streaming platforms. Borowski's focus is the study of true crime, specifically serial killers, as well as the culture which has arisen from killer celebrities. Borowski has been called an investigative historian and a modern folklorist, documenting the world's worst criminals. With over 20 years of post graduate work experience in the field of filmmaking, writing, and studying true crime, Borowski has been featured on many television documentary programs as an expert in his field. John Wayne Gacy is the focus of Borowski's current documentary film which has been in production since 2019. Panzram at Leavenworth, Borowski's latest book details letters written between the incarcerated killer and his jail guard friend. Borowski is featured in an upcoming six-hour documentary series for A&E on five serial killers of the 1970’s to early 90’s. Filmmaker store site: store.johnborowski.com
JAMES AZRAEL
James Azrael is a musician, author, film producer, and actor...but most well known as the founder and head curator of The HSPPA; The Horror & SciFi Prop Preservation Association is a not-for-profit traveling museum of screen used props and wardrobes whose mission is to share and promote prop conservation so these treasures of filmic history can be enjoyed for generations to come. James began his career in Chicagoland radio in 1996 and had left radio to pursue music with his band, Court Jester, fulltime by 2000. Court Jester's first CD "Gina" in 2003 paved a strong footing for the band nationwide with a video for "Stand Up" on MTV2. The 2006 follow up, "Strangeland" honed the bands sounds, featured the addition of Dizzy Reed (Guns N Roses) on piano/keys and saw two charting singles, "Hollywood Girl" and "Needles To Say." Court Jester, while never officially disbanding, seemed to call it quits by 2010 after being unable to cope with the passing of drummer, Jon "JS" Stern.
In 2015 James launched The HSPPA and has been operating that full time since; while authoring 3 HSPPA books and producing/acting in film ["Farewell Darkness", "The Hospital 2", "It's Just A Game"]. James also currently owns and runs a movie prop museum in Las Vegas (Cineloggia) with SFX artist Nick J Benson [Society, ANOES 4, The Blob] and a horror themed gluten-free bakery (Spooky's Swirls) outside of Phoenix with three Curators of The HSPPA.
CHAD SAVAGE
Chad Savage is a dark artist/designer and the owner of Sinister Visions inc., a dark visual design company that caters to the horror, Halloween & haunted attraction industries. Besides providing branding, art and websites for hundreds of haunted houses around the world, he manages a series of genre websites including PumpkinCult.com and the DarkChicago.com series of sites, and is the Art & Marketing Director for Flashback Weekend and The Zombie Army.
Sinister Visions inc. is an official sponsor of Flashback Weekend, and will host/sponsor the Costume Contest on Saturday - details HERE!
To learn more about Chad Savage and his work, visit SV23.com.
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Celebrity guests subject to change without notice
due to unforseeable filming/scheduling conflicts.
