Morbido 2018 Wrap-up: Stories From My Happy Place

Morbido is known for their extravagant opening ceremonies, full of splendor and show stopping moments. Morbido pulls no punches when it comes to their opening nights.

In true John Hammond style (waits for it) they are shows that need to be witnessed to be understood and appreciated. I have written about them before and if I do my job properly you may get the sense that they are awesome, but until you are there you don’t really know HOW awesome they are. And I would love to tell you HOW awesome this year’s opening ceremony was, except I missed most of it despite being there from the start.

How did this happen? Well, it turns out I am a pretty shit Viking.

Oh, do tell, Andrew.

In a moment. But first, pictures!

Note the embroidered Morbido wraps on the drums.

Festival director Pablo Koestinger and Pinhead

Mi hermano de madre Mexicana, Abraham, programmer extraordinaire of Morbido.

Yes. There was more than just Star Wars moments in the opening ceremony. But. It's Star Wars!

Here is my shit Viking story.

Earlier in the week, before travelling down to Morbido, mi Padre de Terror, festival director Pablo Koestinger messaged me, asking if I would like to participate in the opening ceremony. Without even asking what he wanted me to do I said yes. When your Padre de Terror asks if you want to be involved in the opening ceremony you Peter Venkman that shit (really reaching for that punchline here, “Ray, when someone asks if you’re a god…).

He followed up with a picture of a Viking costume.

Okay then. At some point during the opening ceremony I am going to be paraded around in a Viking costume? It looked like I would get to at least carry a sword so that was something to look forward to. The Mack family also has matriarchal roots in Denmark so it would be carrying on the family tradition in a sense, with less pillaging and razing.

All the guests were shuttled to the Museo Jose Luis Cuevas where I hastily skipped the red carpet, because experience has taught me that no one outside of the festival gives a flying toss that you are a news editor from Canada. So rather than suffer the embarrassment of not suffering a seizure for lack of camera flashes I dashed into the venue and started meeting up with my local amigos before the festivities began.

I was soon ushered into a back room with other Morbido regulars [REC]’s Paco Plaza, producer Enrique López Lavigne, Carlos Vermut, director of Quien te Cantara and production designer Javier Alvariño. There already was a rather stunning woman in a Catalina costume and makeup waiting inside, still we had no choice but to disrobe in front of her. Honest! No choice at all.

The Four Amigos were quickly kitted out in conquistador costumes. Then I was handed a sheepskin tunic of sorts. What I thought were boots in the picture were more pieces of sheepskin hastily tied around my dress shoes and socks (the opening ceremony is a formal event and Andrew dresses to impress). The costume was obviously made for someone of a more slender frame and as much good as I have done on myself this past year, shedding a few pounds to and fro, I was still wrapped like a sheep sausage. So obviously the belt didn’t go all the way around. The leather wrist straps were nowhere to be found. I also have been at odds with hats of any shape and size- I have a big head and that’s not just my ego talking - so the helmet sat on top. And no sword! NO. SWORD.

Emerging from the change room looking more like a deranged caveman than a viking (Oog!) the opening ceremony was well underway. From what I could see there was some kind of Aztec or Mayan ceremony being played out in front of a giant mock up pyramid. From what Are We Not Cats producer Joshua Sobel saw, he though I was the best thing he had seen that night so far (followed by a hearty ‘Fuck Off, Josh!’ as I carried on upstairs). We were led upstairs to second floor, picture a balcony that encircles the large courtyard like interior of the museo. Behind the enclosed side of the square, out of sight of the crowd and out of sight of the proceedings below us, we found ourselves standing among an eclectic mix of colonial era soldiers, imperial stormtroopers and Call of Duty recreationists. Easily the only one with the least amount of clothes on one of the soldiers saw my Morbido tattoo so we compared for a moment. Then the obvious happened. Because it’s me we’re talking about here. The tunic began to fall apart.

The stitching around the shoulders was pulling out and it began to slide off my shoulders. I do not know if I have what you call ‘sexy’ shoulders? Someone of my generous size usually doesn’t have their shirt off in front of women all that often but tonight it looked like if we did not act fast that the guests below were going to get a whole lot more of Andrew than they probably thought they needed. One of the costumers rushed to find safety pins but when it was evident that this was a lost cause, rather than pull a Janet Jackson in front of the audience, I was told it was okay and I could go back and get changed and join the crowd below. I caught up with mi amigos Ricardo and Christian from Giant Films (the short film Voces) where the photo above was taken with Ricardo. I put on my 'Mack Can Act Civilized' clothes and joined the crowd for the final moments of the opening ceremony.

Having pulled out of the livery tailspin, I arrived in time to stand directly in front of a brass and drum band, cherishing what little hearing I had left, as it left me forever. Fortunately I did get to see the Star Wars themed segment of the show with Darth Pablo and Princess Paloma Ruiz De Alda (are you reading this Lucasfilm?) and geek out during the Imperial March. Some things never change.

When the ceremony concluded we went long into the night celebrating festival sponsor Kraken Rum with the consumption of a tremendous amount of cuban y cocas. I also discovered that a foodstuff called Cochinita has been gravely missing from life and if I could have walked without tripping over my Kraken laced feet I would have chased down every waiter with a plate of the stuff. It is sheer magic for your mouth.

As I mentioned earlier Morbido has outings that give their guests the opportunity to experience some of the rich Mexican culture and history. Once again we visited the pyramids at Teotihuacan and I made a point of going to the National Museum of Anthropology this year.

The Teotihuacan visit always kicks off the week, and after of night of partying hard at the opening ceremony we could be forgiven if the legs were not quite up to snuff. However, I scored a personal best at climbing the buggers and we were able to visit areas we never explored last year because they were roped off after the September earthquake.

Due to last year’s miserable attempt at ascending the smaller Moon Pyramid this was a year focused on healthier living and I reaped rewards that day. I got as high as you could go on Moon and then after a quick jaunt along the Avenue of the Dead (for real) I made halfway up Sun before calling it quits. We want to say that we only made it up halfway because we had about half an hour left of our time at the site, but you know, legs. If we go back next year I’m heading straight for Sun and climbing that bastard all the way to the top!

Then there was the required stop after the visit to the pyramids to rest and refuel. At La Gruta the restaurant in the cave the food is great and if you have never been, saying that you ate in a giant cave, is always good bragging rights. They always have a very cool Dias de Muertos display at the very bottom so once we finished our excellent meal we all headed further down into the restaurant for the requisite photo ops.

The National Museum of Anthropology is massive, exhaustive and exhausting. Maybe it was because it was the final day of our stay at the festival and we’ve all been burning the midnight oil for days straight. An institution like that definitely needs multiple visits to properly cover. And as The Ranger producer Heather Buckley lamented, the section for human sacrifices was closed off when we were there so we still have no idea if we were doing it right.

This year a partnership between Morbido and La Feira de Chapultepec, a local amusement park, began. Morbido now runs La Casona del Terror, the haunted house in the center of the park.

This year Morbido chose the new WWII action horror flick Overlord as the theme for this year’s house. The pitch black stone facade rose up against the cheery and bright backdrop of the theme park. Along the side of the house lies the fuselage of a bomber. A lone zombie soldier guards the front entrance as we wait for a small ceremony to begin.

Don Mancini, man of the festival, is in attendance of course. He and Pablo were joined by Hellraiser’s Ashley Laurence who had until then remained largely incognito since the opening night festivities.

There was a small ceremony to mark the occasion and together with the theme park's director Demian Merlo Ashley and Don were presented with keys to the theme park.

We knew before the festival began that next year the story for La Casona del Terror will be written by Pacco Plaza (Veronica and [REC]). During the ceremony Pablo announced that Jon Schnitzer, guest of the festival and director of Haunters: The Art of the Scare, will also join the team and help out to heighten the experience for all attendees. His experience documenting and covering haunted houses for his documentary is invaluable!

Then festival guests were invited to get in line and experience this year’s house. That first zombie at the entrance invited us into the small entrance then proceed to pig squeal the back story (?) at us in Spanish then we were ushered deeper into the house. It was all kind of a fun filled blur after that. I took point for our group which included The Ranger’s Jenn Wexler, Alex Noyer, director of a short film called Conductor, my good friend Mamazito Izidoro, producer of the Brazilian horror flick The Devil Lives Here.

We were quickly and gutterally ushered into another room where an evil monk beckoned me to stand in the center of target slash pentagram painted on the floor of the room. Of course he did. He then stalked around me pig squealing more story, or, offering my soul to the Devil - I don’t know - then we went through the remainder of the house. What I discovered is that if you run point in a group the haunters will likely let you pass, and focus their efforts on those behind you. And who really, among horror film festival attendees really gets scared at a haunted house. A couple rooms later Alex and I were rushing to meet haunters face to face, screaming back at them. It became more and more fun as we went along and embraced the haunt. As daylight broke upon leaving the house we cheered and yelled at anyone around us, having passed this year’s test of courage. We may have scared more people outside than inside when we did that.

Lo siento, ninos.

I thought we were really spoiled last year when genre royalty Barbara Crampton made every effort to attend all the outings and events, on top of that speak with all the other guests of the festival regardless of our reason for being there (raises hand).

And when, in previous years, you’ve walked the streets of cities like Patzcuaro and Puebla with other genre icons like Richard Stanley (with his personal demon) and Simon Boswell you kind of hope that every special guest who comes feels as comfortable mingling with everyone.

Take Peter Medak. The man is 81 years old so I would not have expected him to be at every outing or thrilling adventure. You get a pass in my books. We were just happy he was here to join us. But by golly he showed up at nearly all the parties. Good on him.

Because I’m at events like this only a couple times a year it is not often that I get to see genre icons and how they work the floor at a festival or a con. But watching Mancini at the festival, and the see that the appreciation and emotion he displayed that night at the birthday party was genuine? He was really overcome with the love shown to him by the festival and the people of Mexico. Looking back on last year when our Queen, Barbara Crampton, was at a lot of the outings and parties, talking to everyone of us individually, it forms your expectations of how your icons could be at smaller more intimate festivals like Morbido where you can be among your peers and fans with relative ease, warmth and friendliness.

If you are an icon of sorts and you are looking to get back into the circuit your peers are the ones that can help you do that by writing nice things about you. If you decide to hide out in your hotel room and only show up at your own events? Well, that also speaks for you as well.

Meeting Peter Medak was really cool. It also doesn’t hurt when you are one of a half dozen folks invited to a last minute secret screening of his documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers in a part of southern Mexico City called San Angel, a university town in the district.

We watched his new doc in a micro-cinema called Cinemania, part owned by Morbido, and smack in the middle of contemporary shopping centre. While we waited for the show to begin he and I sat outside the venue, chatted for a bit and took photos. Generally when you are at any festival you fighting to be heard over thumping dance music at the parties that close each day out. This brief moment with Medak was a pleasant segue into the screening.

Yeah, another thing about that trip...

This is the part where I take a moment publicly confess that I made plans that day to meet the aforementioned Ricardo and catch up on his new projects. More importantly, I was to meet one of my closest friends from the festival for dinner that night. When Pablo came to me with the offer to be one of a handful of people to go down to Cinemania and watch the doc I cancelled that dinner with her.

DON’T EVER DO THAT! DON’T DO WHAT I DID!

I love mi Padre de Terror but that was a dick move on my part! Way to go, dummy! Halfway through life and I still have not learned my lesson. Some of you will say, 'But Andrew! Peter Medak! Peter Sellers! Special Invite!'. Yeah. Choices were made. I will not say they were the right ones but by that time the festival was in full swing and I just could not find another time to reschedule that dinner. That night was my greatest gain and my greatest loss.

If there were a clear winner of this year’s round of Celebrity Morbido - not that we choose, but if we did - that winner would be Childs Play’s Don Mancini. When he was free from the obligation of interviews and routine celebrity related activities the franchise creator was hanging out, walking as a god among people kind. Other times it was random, like the morning he and I were waiting for a shuttle at our hotel and the dining room staff came rushing out with a local paper featuring an article with him, asking for pictures.

The lovefest culminated with a celebration of the 30 year anniversary party for Chucky. It was held in the perfect spot, at Museo Juguete Antiguo (Antique Toy Museum), a four story building packed to the gills with toys of all sorts. I would like to tell you that I went through all four floors but the lure of thumping beats and the promise of alcohol dragged me through to the open area where the party was happening.

One thing was very clear though. Mancini loved every moment of it. Not because of the hero worship but because the love and adoration expressed to him during the festival was very genuine. Time and time again he commented on how overwhelmed he was and how he wished his partner was there to share the experience with him.

The party continued with a Chucky themed cake. There was specially commissioned artwork for him to sign. And then the Mariachi band came out. The mostly CDMX based crowd then sang to him a traditional Mexican birthday song.

This was also the night I discovered a new favorite dessert Day of the Dead Ice Cream. I had heard whispers of it. A dear friend and member of Familia Morbido tweeted about it leading up to the season. Pan de Muerto is light and fluffy sweet bread dusted with sugar. It is delightful. Then someone thought why not put chunks of Pan de Muerto in a sweet ice cream base and my taste buds surrendered immediately to this sweet sugary demise.

Morbido es familia. You can describe it. You can document it on your social media platforms. You can write home about it. But until you have come and experienced it for yourself you do not really know what it is like to experience Morbido. Unless you are trying to take my spot then I will cut you!

Once you are in though you're in for life, and thereafter. I've been in for a while. I've branded my skin to prove my devotion to the Morbido faith. I can say with absolute certainty that if you ever find yourself at this festival and you open yourself up to the people of Morbido and Mexico life will never be the same.