Special Guests for Salem Horror Fest 2020 Include Joe Dante, John Waters and the Women of ‘The Dream Master’
On the road to this year’s all-virtual festival in October, the Salem, Massachusetts-based Salem Horror Fest has announced a star studded lineup of celebrity guests this week.
Legendary directors Joe Dante and John Waters will be part of this year’s socially distanced festivities, along with reunions and retrospectives of films such as Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The Howling, Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives, Stephen King’s It, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Ginger Snaps and Cecil B. Demented.
Dee Wallace, Zach Galligan, and Robert Picardo join Joe Dante for reunions of Gremlins 2: The New Batch and The Howling with Academy Award winning screenwriter John Sayles and producer Michael Finnell. The panels are part of a festival tribute to Dante’s filmography supported by original artwork from Goosebumps artist Tim Jacobus and exclusive podcast episodes from The Faculty of Horror, Pure Cinema Podcast, A Nightmare on Film Street and Purple Stuff Podcast.
Cult icon John Waters is set to discuss the state of independent cinema and reflect on twenty years of Cecil B. Demented with Katie Rife (AV Club). The film will be available to stream along with an exclusive audio commentary by the Critically Acclaimed podcast.
Additional panels include the 20th anniversary of Ginger Snaps with Emily Perkins and screenwriter Karen Walton, the women of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master with Tuesday Knight, Toy Newkirk, and Lisa Wilcox, and cast reunions from Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and Stephen King’s It as part of a series by the Consequence of Sound podcast network.
The festival plans to innovate the convention experience by facilitating live, virtual meet and greets over Zoom with the help of MIT experts.
Salem Horror Fest begins on Thursday, October 1 with programming all the way through Halloween.
