Frightmare, we hardly knew ye. No, don’t panic—the festival isn’t going anywhere. But it is with a heavy heart that I acknowledge the day I’m writing this as exactly one month to the day Texas Frightmare Weekend—in my humble opinion, the best horror con in the United States—wrapped up its’ 2017 show, not to return until 2018.

Horror has long prided itself on being a socially conscious genre. From the racial commentary of Night of the Living Dead to the anti-consummerism of They Live, fans have long been able to point to films ostensibly about blood, death, and terror and say that they’ve been aware of—and concerned about—a variety of social ills and injustices while the “straight” world has still been wringing its’ hands and spinning tales of denial. To paraphrase, though, fandom without works is dead, and it benefits the world little if the horror community can simply tout film after film that brings a problem to light without affecting any sort of change.

And so another Frightmare has come and gone. Yes, the event ended two weeks ago, and, yes I'm just getting around to writing about it. Attending Texas Frightmare Weekend tends to be a draining experience: It is, after all, nearly seventy-two hours of non-stop glee, a cavalcade of film screenings, autograph signings, meet-and-greets, parties, and general good-old-fashioned mayhem, all dedicated to the horror genre in art and entertainment.