If you are ever lucky enough to be in a position to befriend Meredith Borders, then by all means, take it. In addition to being a kind and wonderful human, she has also gifted me with some incredible opportunities over the years; my life is unquestionably better thanks to her, and I can only hope to repay the favor(s) someday.
The most recent example of me benefiting from having her in my life was a few months ago, when she connected me with Ted Wilson at the Telluride Horror Show, a festival I'd heard about for years but had never seen for myself. They wanted FANGORIA to host a horror trivia game to add to the list of fun events that make THS more than just a traditional film festival. And despite the lengthy list of perfectly suitable candidates from the Fango family, she thought of me! #blessed
It had been a long time since I hosted a full trivia game. I do a quick, easy version (usually five questions) at the monthly screenings I host for Screamfest, and occasionally take on a guest round at Los Angeles' Dead Right Horror Trivia (co-hosted by Dr. Rebekah McKendry, another Fango legend!), but running a full game is more daunting. Coming up with round ideas, and then the questions within those rounds, is brain-frying, especially for a neurodivergent person like me, since we tend to look at things a little differently.
We retain other kinds of information that a neurotypical would never pick up on at all, let alone remember when operating on shorter sleep schedules (if you're getting a full eight hours, you're not festing correctly!) and perhaps the effects of the adult beverages that were being served at the Elks Lodge where the game was being held. So that has to be taken into consideration, first and foremost.
But I couldn't make it too easy, either! Let's face it, if someone is going to take two hours away from exciting new movies (including Capturing Bigfoot, which was playing at the same time as the game. Cruel!) to answer horror movie questions, I have to assume they are someone who would find “Who directed the original Halloween?” to be embarrassingly easy. So the questions had to dig deeper — but not TOO deep, because I assure you, as frustrating as it can be when you're playing and confronted with a question that you can't even come up with a logical guess, it's downright mortifying to be the one asking it and seeing an entire room full of blank faces, as I unfortunately did more than once.
Long story short, there's a real learning curve to doing it even if you host such events regularly, and I had an even bigger hurdle: I had never been to THS before! I wasn't sure whether the fest was full of hardcore horror fans flying in from around the world, or Telluride residents who just wanted to support a local business and wouldn't necessarily know whether the guy with the razor fingers was named Freddy or Jason. Since the prizes were large bundles of Fango swag (back issues, hats, tumblers, and all three of our bookazines), I wanted to make it challenging enough to ensure they went to worthy homes, but not so hard that people thought I was torturing them.
And it's here that I must apologize to Meredith, because I inadvertently gave her what turned out to be the hardest round: FANGORIA history! I wrote it and ran it by her, but when she offered to come help me pass out ballots and keep score (i.e. the boring stuff) I asked if she'd like to host that round herself so she could have a little more fun. And because she's the best, she agreed, but I felt terrible when I realized the crowd wasn't exactly populated with folks who know how much history FANGORIA has.
You can usually see someone perk up when there's a question that they instantly know the answer to, but in the Fango round, questions I thought would be softballs (“Who is on the cover of issue #1?) were met with a noticeable stillness for much of the crowd. I ended up adjusting a few questions on the fly (adding multiple choices and such) for all rounds, but without giving them the first three letters of any given answer, there was no way to turn that one around; we got back several ballots with no correct answers. I'm so sorry for making you look like a villain, Meredith!
But overall it seemed people had a good time. I was delighted to learn that the winning team, the Flying Purple Fetus Eaters, had actually met at a previous Horror Show through a trivia game, so it's now their tradition. And since they won, I assume they were happy with the results. Another team that didn't do all that well came up to me later and asked about Fango, and even bought me a drink (or three), so they clearly enjoyed themselves despite going home empty-handed.
There was a guy there with his mom, which I thought was so sweet, especially since my own mom was so instrumental in my introduction to horror — I wish mine wasn’t 3000 miles away so we could go to events together! And a couple of other teams of 1 or 2 ended up joining up with others, which is always great to see. They might be the next Flying Purple Fetus Eaters, forming a supergroup and winning the next game outright!
So yes, I hope there's a next game. I had such a great time and would absolutely love to host again next year if they'll have me. But even if they don't, I think I'll just do my best to come as a regular attendee to enjoy the movies, events (the pig roast was delicious), and a brief taste of the winter weather that played a big part in my trading Massachusetts for California all those years ago that I occasionally still miss. I got to touch snow, but I didn't have to shovel or drive in it! Truly the best of both worlds.
And on that note, here is one of my rounds, themed to snowy/wintertime horror movies. See how you do and report back! Answers at the bottom. No team got all eight right — can you?
WINTER ROUND
1. What event is being celebrated in the photo at the end of The Shining that suggests Jack Torrance really has “always been there?”
2. Sticking with Stephen King — in Misery, the snowy conditions are what caused Paul Sheldon to crash his car. Why was he driving in the snow to begin with?
- Going out for groceries
- Meeting his girlfriend
- Delivering his manuscript
- On his way to his hotel
3. In The Thing, several characters erroneously claim the men from the other base are from Sweden. Where are they ACTUALLY from?
4. The 2006 remake of Black Christmas brought back one of the original's stars as the house mother?which one?
- Olivia Hussey
- Carrie Fisher
- Andrea Martin
- Margot Kidder
5. 30 Days of Night started as a comic book and has since expanded to movies and novels. Who wrote the original comic?
6. In Let the Right One In, Oskar and Eli bond over what iconic ‘80s toy?
7. In The Black Phone 2, our characters go to a remote youth camp during the winter and discover they can only stop the Grabber if they find the bodies of his previous victims. Where are those bodies found?
8. A Norwegian slasher set on a ski mountain named Fritt Vilt spawned two sequels – what is the more common US title?
ANSWERS
1. 4th of July, 2. C. Delivering manuscript, 3. Norway, 4. Andrea Martin, 5. Steve Niles, 6. Rubik’s Cube, 7. In the frozen lake, 8. Cold Prey
