The days are getting shorter. The leaves are changing color, and Halloween is just around the corner. In Santa Cruz, it can mean only one thing: This is the time of monsters. Literally. The fifth annual Festival of Monsters kicks off on Wednesday, Oct. 14, and runs through Sunday, Oct. 18. Presented by UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Monster Studies, the Festival of Monsters (FOM) is a ghoulishly fun—and intellectual—dive into everything that goes bump in the night.
“The Festival of Monsters is a really fun conference,” explains Center for Monster Studies director Dr. Michael “Doc” Chemers. “It’s a conference where people come to have a great time sharing their knowledge and celebrating monsters.”
“We’re also a few years in now,” adds co-director Renée Fox. “And we have a number of people who are returning. So it’s also part of strengthening the community that we’re building.”
Or—to put it another way about the community—it’s aaaaallliiivvvee!!! And growing.
The fest rises from its coffin at 7:30pm Wednesday at the 418 Project with a screening of the 1955 sci-fi horror classic The Quatermass Xperiment (released in the U.S. as The Creeping Unknown). Hosted by UCSC professor emeritus of literature Dr. H. Marshall Leicester, the film follows a trio of British astronauts who are launched into space, but only one returns—and he has a terrible surprise. Tickets are available to the public online or at the door.
Unlike previous editions held on the UCSC campus, this year’s conference will be held at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel near the Boardwalk.
“One of the events we have is a Haunted Boardwalk and Santa Cruz tour that participants can sign up for,” Fox says. “We’re trying to drill down into the ways Santa Cruz is so tied with a history of monsters.”
The FOM conference is free to current UC Santa Cruz students, staff and faculty; paid registration ranges from $250 to $300, depending on registration category. While that price might cause an initial fright, it’s more of a harmless Scooby-Doo villain than a Frankenstein: Paid registration includes conference events, a welcome reception, breakfast and coffee Oct. 15–18, and the costumed Monsters Ball on Saturday, Oct. 17. Free UCSC registration does not include food.
The festival’s theme is “Language,” with academics, authors and artists discussing how the language of horror permeates our culture. Topics range from “Medieval Monstrosities” and “Lady Monsters” to “Interdisciplinary Monsters & Contemporary Crisis” and “Language, Agency and the Making of Monsters.”
Why monsters?
“They show us alternate ways of being,” says Chemers. “Maybe transgressive ways of being that might be better suited for survival in a monstrous world.”
Anyone who can’t afford a ticket won’t have to pull an Invisible Man and forgo the festival. There will be free public events Saturday, including “A Devilish Discussion” at 2pm at the Museum of Art and History, featuring authors Clay McLeod Chapman (Devil Inside) and Kiersten White (The Fox and the Devil).
White—who has been involved, in one form or another, since 2019, when it was originally FrankenCon—says it’s the mad academics behind the creature that make it so fun and unique.
“Anyone who cares about monsters as much as [Fox and Chemers] do is someone I want in my life,” she says. “Plus anyone who says ‘no’ to an excuse to visit Santa Cruz is a fool. Ocean! Redwoods! Banana slugs! Truly a perfect place.”
This year’s fest is also adding several new features to its free schedule, including signings at Atlantis Fantasyworld with comic creators Iván Brandon (Deadpool, Wolverine) and Chapman (Creepshow, Séance in the Asylum, Edge of the Venomverse).
“One of the aspects of horror that I lean into is the oral tradition of storytelling,” says Chapman. “There’s a great value in sharing these stories with as many people as possible.”
This year will also feature a game day, hosted by GAME Santa Cruz on Saturday. Free sessions at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm will feature macabre board and card games like Gloom, Moon Colony Bloodbath and This Game Is Killer. Space is limited, so anyone who wants to play needs to sign up on GAME’s website. A separate 6pm session of Blood on the Clocktower requires a paid ticket.
“Horror games have never been more popular than they are right now,” says GAME owner Westly Pannell. “When the socio-political atmosphere is uncertain and in turmoil, we turn to things like horror to remind ourselves that we’re alive.”
Like any good monster worth its weight in scares, the Center for Monster Studies is also mutating and adapting with the times. Initially the first academic center of its kind, it has since been joined by others around the world. The center is currently working closely with the Society for the Study of American Gothic, based in Salem, Massachusetts, and the newly formed European Centre for Monster Studies in Heilbronn, Germany.
The center’s scholars are also working with Brazilian and Chilean scholars who want to open a South American Center for Monster Studies.
“They’re very excited about it,” Chemers says. “Particularly talking about the ways that monstrosity is part of the colonial and imperial projects. Monstrosity is very important to justifying the imperial project.”
The Center for Monster Studies is extending its tentacles beyond the spooky season.
In January, it will be hosting Crossing Over: Global Transformations in Yokai Art, an on-campus art exhibit featuring yokai (Japanese supernatural spirits and monsters) artwork by Adam Cooley and Chubei Yagyu.
Tickets and a full conference schedule for the Festival of Monsters can be found at monsterstudies.ucsc.edu.
