Guests
Guests for the 2025 Festival! check back for updates are more are announced!
Featured Guests
CASSANDRA KHAW is the USA Today bestselling and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Library at Hellebore, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, The Salt Grows Heavy, Breakable Things, and coauthor of The Dead Take the A Train with Richard Kadrey. They are an award-winning game writer.
David Prior has long believed that it's a director's duty to know first hand every job on a film set, which is how he justifies his rather bizarre list of credits. While he has produced and directed several feature length documentaries for DVD, he wrote and directed feature film The Empty Man, and AM1200, and directed "The Autopsy" episode of Netflix series Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (from the story by Michael Shea).
Since working as a child actor, Prior has assembled a long and ecclectic list of credits from nearly every corner of the film industry. He's worked extensively in visual effects, art departments and even development (which isn't something he's proud of). He's produced reality television, directed second units and he played the Alien in Alien Resurrection. Prior has been gifted and cursed with the unshakable conviction that he wanted to make movies since the age of 5. As the great-grandson of silent film legend John Gilbert and silent film star Leatrice Joy, he can only attribute his unusual certainty about this at so young an age to some mystical condition of the blood.
Prior has been one of the leading creators of special edition DVDs since he began in 1999. He produced and designed the landmark Fight Club DVD, which, if he's not careful, is what they're going to put on his tombstone. Other important DVDs include Master & Commander, the 4-disc edition of Pearl Harbor, Panic Room, Die Hard, Big Trouble in Little China, Titus, Blade II, Napoleon Dynamite, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Planet of the Apes, Ravenous, and David Cronenberg's The Fly and Michael Bay's Transformers. He is currently working on David Fincher's newest film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button after having completed the masterful Zodiac - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition) also for Fincher.
Guests
In 1998 Scott Glancy left a perfectly functional career as an attorney to join up with the role-playing game publisher Pagan Publishing, the nerd equivalent of running away to join the Foreign Legion. Today Scott is the man in charge of Pagan Publishing (much in the same sense that the last surviving legionnaire can be said to be in command of Fort Zinderhoff). Pagan’s most recent project is “Horrors of War,” an anthology of scenarios set during the Great War for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Scott is a contributing author on the award-winning Delta Green series of Call of Cthulhu rpg supplements and has had Lovecraftian fiction published in several short story collections including the recent "Book of Cthulhu II," "Shotguns v. Cthulhu," and the upcoming “Swords v. Cthulhu.” You can hear his recorded games sessions on Role-Playing Public Radio, and listen to him bloviate on the Unspeakable Podcast and Podcast at Ground Zero.
Andrew Leman is one of the founding members of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and has produced a number of literary, film, theatrical, music, prop and gaming projects there over the decades with his longtime friend and collaborator Sean Branney. He has written and produced more than 20 live-action Lovecraftian role-playing games. He wrote and directed the first HPLHS film, "The Testimony of Randolph Carter", directed "The Call of Cthulhu", and co-wrote and co-produced The Whisperer in Darkness. He co-wrote, produced, and appears in the "Dark Adventure Radio Theatre" series of Lovecraft adaptations. Leman earned his MFA in acting from the University of Illinois, and has been seen on professional stages in Chicago and Los Angeles. He greatly enjoys reading for The H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and being an occasional guest host. When not pursuing any of these many other occupations, Leman is a graphic and type designer, and his typographical work has been seen in books and on movie screens, Trader Joe’s products, and billboards nationwide.
Cody Goodfellow has written ten novels and five collections of short stories, and has won three Wonderland Book Awards. His comics work has been featured in Mystery Meat, Creepy, Slow Death Zero and Skin Crawl. As an actor, he has appeared in numerous short films, TV shows, music videos by Anthrax and Beck, and a Days Inn commercial. He wrote, co-produced and scored the Lovecraftian hygiene films "Baby Got Bass" and "Stay At Home Dad," which can be viewed on YouTube.
Kenneth Hite has designed, written, or co-authored 100+ roleplaying works, including Trail of Cthulhu, Bookhounds of London, The Dracula Dossier, the Delta Green RPG, Night’s Black Agents, The Fall of Delta Green, and Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition. His other works include the two-volume Tour de Lovecraft, Cthulhu 101, The Cthulhu Wars for Osprey, the “Lost in Lovecraft” column for Weird Tales, an annotated edition of Chambers’ The King in Yellow, and four Lovecraftian children’s books. Half of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast and an Artistic Associate at Chicago’s WildClaw Theatre, he lives in Chicago with two Lovecraftian cats and his non-Lovecraftian wife, Sheila.
Sean is a producer, actor, director and writer with the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society which he runs with his nefarious colleague, Andrew Leman. He was intimately involved in the creation of the motion pictures The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, nineteen episodes of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, and many other Lovecraftian projects. With his work at the HPLHS, he's created many other Lovecraftian entertainments. Sean also produces and directs live theatre in Los Angeles. He plays ice hockey and has four chinchillas.
Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito (she/her) is a Chinese American writer in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Nailed Magazine, Buckman Journal, Flame Tree Press's Asian Ghost Stories, Strangehouse's Chromophobia, Startling Stories, Not a Pipe's Stories Within, Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, Death’s Garden Revisited, and Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror. Frances also co-chairs the Young Willamette Writers program that provides free writing classes for high school and middle school students. You can find her on IG @paippolito, Twitter @frances_pai, and at www.francesippolito.com
Michelle had been making costumes for herself and for friends for a few years when she had the crazy idea to try to create for herself a Cthulhu costume. After a journey to the fabric temple with only a vague idea she returned home with some green, mottled, scaled stretch velour and a bodysuit pattern. After reusing some old fairy wings and some stuffing she managed to create a costume that was looked upon with horror when Cthulhu Girl ventured out into Portland one Halloween. A brief appearance at Orycon won her some awards and much more favorable looks than the previous appearance but Cthulhu Girl went back into the closet soon after. Michelle has been attending the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival since some students took her along shortly after she moved to Portland, OR to work at Reed College in 2000. But it was a few years and festivals before she was brave enough to don the costume at the HPLFF and once again become Cthulhu Girl. She has since made many appearances at the HPLFF, welcoming the crowds, posing for pictures, and handing out awards. The first year Cthulhu Girl appeared at the festival was immortalized in the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown.
John Shirley is an author, screenwriter, television writer, comics writer, singer, and songwriter. With over 40 novels and 8 short story collections to his name, he won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for his collection, Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side. His novels include Demons, Stormland, Cellars, A Sorcerer of Atlantis, and Wetbones. He is co-screenwriter of The Crow, and has written for television and animation. He performs with his band, THE SCREAMING GEEZERS, and his newest story collection is The Feverish Stars.
Andrew Migliore is the founder and original director of the annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon. Andrew is also the co-author of Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft published by Night Shade Books and was founder and producer at Lurker Films where he launched The H. P. Lovecraft Collection, The Weird Tale Collection, and The Edgar Allan Poe Collection on DVD. See his past Founder articles at the Daily Lurker https://medium.com/daily-lurker
Director - "The Outsider"
A. Burnett is an illustrator and animation student from Montreal with a particular love for monster movies. "The Outsider" is their second animated film and their USA directorial debut. When not studying, they have a passion for knitting and torturing their D&D players.
OG Lurker, Filmmaker, HPLFF San Pedro (2010-2016)
Aaron Vanek’s student film The Outsider was the first movie to play at the first H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival®. Subsequent movies screening at the HPLFF include My Necronomicon, Return to Innsmouth, The Yellow Sign, and Call of Tutu. He was awarded the “Howie” in 2001 for contributions to Lovecraft Cinema, and he founded and co-hosted the HPLFF in San Pedro (Los Angeles) from 2010-2016. Upcoming projects include contributions to the Dreamlands RPG by Jason Bradley Thompson, and a crowdfund to remaster and re-release a compilation of his weird tale movies. See also: AaronVanek.com and SpectacularDisasterFactory.com
Adam Bolivar is a formal poet of mythic and folkloric fantasy, a weird fiction writer and a playwright for marionettes with a particular interest in alliterative verse, balladry and Jack tales. He is the author of several books, included THE ETTINFELL OF BEACON HILL (Jackanapes Press, 2021), BALLADS FOR THE WITCHING HOUR (Hippocampus Press, 2022) and TOLD BY FIRELIGHT IN TIMBERED HALLS (Jackanapes Press, 2025). A native of Boston, Massachusetts, he now resides in Portland, Oregon. Learn more at adambolivar.com
Andrew S. Fuller writes dark and strange stories. His fiction appears in several magazines, anthologies, short films, and the new collection Constellations of Ruin (2023, Trepidatio Publishing). Since 1999, he’s been editor-in-chief of Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazine. He lives in Portland, OR near two rivers, several extinct(?) volcanoes, and is friends with several crows and spiders. Visit him online at andrewsfuller.com.
Brian Hauser is a screenwriter, filmmaker, novelist, and scholar of weird fiction. He has won the HPLFF screenwriting award three times. This year he will be reading from his upcoming novel Above and Beyond, a weird noir thriller set in San Francisco in 1942.
Writer/Director - "Dry January"
C.J. Arellano mixes horror and fantasy to confront our darkest impulses and laugh at them.
His award-winning films have screened at festivals around the world. His unproduced feature, a queer supernatural thriller, was selected for Tribeca Film Festival’s development marketplace. C.J. won grand prizes in the Asian American International Film Festival Screenplay Competition and the Chicago International Film Festival’s Pitch at Industry Days.
C.J. is fueled by hope, spreadsheets, snarky idealism, ube ice cream, and posting stupid stuff on Instagram stories. He is based in NYC.
Chris Rentzel is a Portland-based filmmaker, songwriter, and photographer whose work blends dark comedy with surreal and poignant storytelling. A native of Dallas, Texas, Chris has created feature films, quirky shorts, and experimental music videos that showcase his unique humor and cinematic style. His latest work continues exploring the strange and the beautiful, often through improvised performances and one-take scenes.
OG Lurker, Filmmaker
Christian Matzke is an author, prop builder and filmmaker from Maine (just south of the Chesuncook Shoggoth Pit). He founded the website Propping Up the Mythos in the mid-Nineties after a high fever compelled him to sculpt his first Cthulhu statue.
"Nyarlathotep" was his first short film, and has been followed by ten more in the years since. Christian is married to special FX artist Sarah Matzke, and together they are raising two young cultists in their 18th century haunted house near the ocean. Christian is hard at work writing the Necronomicon through his site patreon.com/Proppingupthemythos
Director - "Bucolic"
Daniel’s life has been driven by storytelling. Moving to Seattle in the 90s to focus on writing, he found himself immersed in the world of fringe theatre. The Balkan War called, and Daniel traveled to document the conflict. He moved to Portland, Oregon, with a focus on film. In 2007, he directed and produced his first feature, CTHULHU, which won ‘best of festival’ at the Eerie and H.P. Lovecraft Film Festivals, and earned Daniel a nomination for The Stranger's Genius Award. 2014 marked a return to theatre, where he directed and starred in the play Whackjob. Over the past five years, Daniel has produced and/or directed five features and several shorts, including "The Paper Tigers," a kung fu comedy, and most recently, "A Dying Art," which is set to be released next year.
David Heath is a podcaster and blogger who has hosted shows such as Dave's Underground Goat Shenanigans,and Radio Free Oleander. He is currently the co-host of The People's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos. He lives with his extended family in northern Oregon on a working goat farm.
Adventurer/Occult Investigator/Illustrator/Writer/Game Designer/Media Critic/Podcaster from Portland,Oregon. I like soda water, good game design, clever cosmic horror.
Praise to Tsathoggua!! They/Them
Dean Lemire is a native of Portland, Oregon. He started playing the piano at the age of five. His training in classical piano was with the late Mary Dunlap, Music Department Chair, at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. He later studied theatre pipe organ with the late Don Simmons and Jerry Gregorius.
Dean started performing at Oaks Park Roller Rink in Portland at age 17, where he still still occasionally performs on the 4/18 Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ. In addition to Oaks Park Rink, Dean was an organist at Imperial Roller Rink in Portland. He played at Organ Grinder pizza restaurant in Portland and a staff organist at Uncle Milt’s Pipe Organ Pizza in Vancouver, WA for over twenty years. Dean was a featured concert artist at the national convention of the American Theatre Organ Society (ATOS) in 1988 and 2010. For many years, he was the team organist for the Portland Trailblazers at the Memorial Coliseum, as well as team organist for the Portland Beavers baseball team at Civic Stadium/PGE Park. As an accomplished jazz pianist, Dean has traveled extensively as a keyboard artist with various USO military tour groups. He has performed with such names as Bob Hope and Glen Campbell among others… entertaining US troops worldwide on four continents…from military bases and hospitals.…to the carrier deck of the USS Enterprise.
Currently, Dean is resident organist and Program Director at Portland’s historic Hollywood Theatre for the “Pipe Organ Pictures” silent film series - where he regularly performs his original scores live on the Hollywood’s Mighty Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ. He is an active Lifetime member and Past President of the Columbia River Theatre Organ Society, a non-profit Oregon based organization which promotes and preserves this most uniquely American instrument….the theatre pipe organ.
Writer/Director - "Observer"
Dylan Powers is a writer and director from Asheboro, North Carolina. His works often feel like a blend of video games and film, inspired by his career in game trailers and cinematics. Dylan's films are most known for their distinct atmosphere and strange stories that keep the audience thinking after their viewing experience.
Eric is co-owner of Maelstrom Productions. He has produced/directed/edited several shorts and features including the award-winning films H.P. Lovecraft's Strange Aeons: The Thing on the Doorstep and the short “The Shunned House”. He has worked with Crypticon Seattle, The Seattle International Film Festival, TheFilmSchool, and Strange Aeons Magazine.
Evan J. Peterson is a game writer, novelist, and poet. His first novel is Better Living Through Alchemy (Broken Eye Books), and other works include METAFLESH: Poems In the Voices of the Monster (ARUS), Drag Star! (Choice of Games), the world’s first drag performer RPG, and The Road to Innsmouth: Arkham Horror (Asmodee). His writing has appeared in Weird Tales, PseudoPod, Queers Destroy Horror, and Nightmare Magazine. POSTHUMAN, his next RPG, is coming in late 2025 from Choice of Games. Evanjpeterson.com can tell you more.
Garrett Cook is a Wonderland Award winning author as well as an editor, mentor and Twitch streamer. His work has been translated into several languages and published in multiple countries. He streams games and documents his writing process on his channel DocFaustus82 on Twitch. His latest book is Kennel from Madnesss Heart Press.
Gretchen has volunteered at Portland Horror Film Festival and the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival since 2016, and helps judge films for both. As a lifelong fan of horror movies, she loves found footage films and exorcism movies. She is a co-host for Gwen & Gretchen Watch Movies, Check The Gate podcast, co-hosted the Kaijucast podcast, and was a frequent guest on Horror Brew podcast.
OG Lurker, Filmmaker, Screenwriter
John Strysik was a director and writer on the horror television series TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE and MONSTERS. He also directed episodes of ABC Television’s reboot of LAND OF THE LOST. Besides television work, Strysik has written and directed independent features and award winning short film adaptations of stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Franz Kafka. He’s written magazine articles, a fantasy novel called A HALLOW HEART, and co-wrote LURKER IN THE LOBBY - A Guide to the Cinema of H.P. Lovecraft.
He penned the screenplay for the feature film STUCK, directed by Stuart Gordon and starring Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea. The film won San Francisco Indiefest’s Staff Prize and the Silver Raven at Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film.
A mini series he co-wrote has recently been optioned and he's hard at work on a couple of plays about very nasty people.
Writer/Director - "Stargazer"
Justin Robert Vinall is a member of the Directors Guild of America, professionally as a Director, Writer and Producer. He has worked as an Assistant Director, Script Supervisor, and Producer on many productions around Washington State. His Horror Filmmaking includes "EMIKO," "A Purple Vision," and "From the Depths". "STARGAZER" is his latest, a proof of concept cosmic horror looking to evolve into a feature film production in the near future.
K.L. Young is an award-winning filmmaker, podcaster, and publisher. He is the author of The Secret Language of Spiders. He lives in a pop-culture museum in Washington State.
Kevin is originally from Bolton, England. He’s been acting professionally and teaching in the United States for over 20 years. Some of his recent TV credits include LA to Vegas, The Kominsky Method, Raven's Home and Shameless His work with The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society includes masking as their “Shipping Shoggoth” and lending his voice to 13 Dark Adventure Radio Theatre (DART) productions and counting.
Director - "Reliquary: Confession"
Lindsay Morrison is a Denver-based filmmaker and a Los Angeles ex-pat with a passion for horror and a deep love of all things beautifully bizarre. In addition to filmmaking, she has a background in art & design, and brings her dark yet colorful artistic sensibilities to everything she does. Her stories often revolve around themes of self-identity, sexuality, dreams, nightmares, and the sublime.
Lora Friess (Aunt Gore) is a fashion driven artist who enjoys the silly and the macabre. She is co-creator of Trash People from the Dump Productions with her partner Theo “Monstar” Friess and the creator of Horror Movie Cocktails with Aunt Gore on their YouTube channel youtube.com/trashpeople and you can also follow her on her other socials @auntgore
Mark Schneider is a mask maker, puppet fabricator and fantasy creature/character artist based in Portland, OR. Over the last 15 years his workshop “Faust and Company” has contributed to theme parks, movies, television and live theatre companies across the globe. In 2025 he started the puppet film production company PAGAN CIRCUS (with fellow Portland artist Monstark) to further their shared passion for fantasy puppet cinema.
Animation Director - "Helen"
Miguel Miranda is an animation director and supervisor at 3Doubles Producciones, working on international 2D and 3D projects such as Giants of La Mancha, La vie en slip, SuperKlaus, Norbert, and "Helen." He has directed animation for children’s series like Cleo and short films such as "La historia de Lila", also participating in executive production and co-production at international markets and festivals
Monstark is an award-winning filmmaker and monster artist living in Portland, Oregon as a human cat dad. His Lovecraftian puppet film adaptations include "Night-Gaunts" (2023) and "The Outsider "(2024), the latter Co-Produced with Portland artist Schneider under the name Pagan Circus. Pagan Circus is currently developing more Lovecraftian and dark fantasy puppet films and episodic content.
Nathan Carson is a musician, writer, and Moth StorySlam champion from Portland, OR. He is widely known as co-founder and drummer of the internationally touring doom metal band Witch Mountain, host of the XRAY FM radio show The Heavy Metal Sewïng Cïrcle, and owner of the boutique music booking agency Nanotear. His byline can be found in the Willamette Week and the Oregonian. A regular on the weird fiction convention circuit, he has published many short stories and novelettes in critically acclaimed horror anthologies. His first standalone novella, Starr Creek, was recently released by Lazy Fascist Press and currently sits at #1 on the Goodreads list of “Books Like Stranger Things.”
Director/Animator - "The Old Gods"
Noah Van Buhren is an Animator and Filmmaker from the stormy shores of Vancouver, Canada. He has had a lifelong obsession with creating monster movies. His first short film ‘The Jovian Project’ screened at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in 2017. Since then, he has worked as a Creature FX Artist on the Star Wars: Young Jedi Animated series, as well as on many independent horror movies.
Parker Clements is a queer filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon who focuses on films around identity and femininity with getting women in front of and behind the camera. She runs a production company @sockbox_studios over on instagram with a specific focus on storytelling. While mainly focusing on producing she steps back into the directing seat after nearly four years.
Writer/Director - A Blind Bargain
PAUL BUNNELL (Writer, Producer, Director) began his cinematic journey in 1963 when a doctor first slapped him on the rear and the sound of a movie camera came out! His early influences were Walt Disney, Alfred Hitchcock, and David Lynch. Paul wanted to make A Blind Bargain seem like it could have been an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. By shooting on Kodak film and using cinematic techniques from the period, he believes he has achieved this to his satisfaction.
Sarah Walker is an artist, anthropologist, and writer of horror living in the Pacific Northwest. Her work appears in publications such as Audient Void, Lovecraft Ezine Press, Vastarien, and many more. She co-edited the Folk Horror anthology, A Walk in A Darker Wood with Gordon White, Phil Breach, and Duane Pesice, and A Walk in a City of Shadows: Tales of Urban Legendry, with Nora B. Peevy, Jill Hand, Gordon White, and Phil Breach.
Theoddra Monstar is a creative weirdo who enjoys bringing smiles to people faces through bizarre puppets and music. They are also the creator of The Subterrestrial Society comic, and the co-creator of Trash People from the Dump Productions with their partner Lora Friess (Aunt Gore). You can find them on YouTube at youtube.com/trashpeople and on their other socials @theomonstar
Director - "Carter"
Xander Copp is an emerging filmmaker from Toronto, Canada, whose films have a precise, omniscient visual style, with hard-hitting themes and suspenseful pacing. CARTER, his second short film, is an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation and an exploration of grief dedicated to his late father.