Fans of vampires, witches, and mid-century monster television are packing into a DeKalb County hotel this weekend as Monsterama Con returns for its 13th year, bringing with it a lineup of Dark Shadows cast members and a tribute to horror writer Richard Matheson on what would have been his 100th birthday year. The gathering runs Friday through Sunday at the Atlanta Marriott Northeast/Emory Area, where organizers are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the gothic soap opera's 1966 premiere alongside Matheson's century mark.
Monsterama Con is a retro horror and science fiction convention, and this year's edition doubles as an anniversary celebration for one of daytime television's most influential shows, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. Dark Shadows was set in the fictional town of Collinsport, Maine, and introduced characters including vampire Barnabas Collins and witch Angelique Bouchard, figures that helped the gothic soap opera change the face of daytime television during its six-season run from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s. The show premiered on ABC on June 27, 1966, and aired 1,225 episodes before ending its run on April 2, 1971, according to the UCLA Hammer Museum. Created and executive-produced by Dan Curtis, the series became the first daytime soap opera to spawn a theatrical feature film spinoff, House of Dark Shadows, released in 1970 with members of the television cast.
Cast Members and Cult Icons Fill Out the Guest List
Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Maggie Evans on Dark Shadows, and fellow cast member Jim Storm were both scheduled to appear at the convention, per the same FOX 5 Atlanta report. Also scheduled to appear was Ali Marie Matheson, the daughter of Richard Matheson, connecting the con's two big anniversary threads under one roof. The guest list extended beyond Dark Shadows alumni entirely, with cult cinema figure Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma Entertainment, and television actor French Stewart also confirmed, according to the Monsterama Con website.
Richard Matheson was a novelist and screenwriter whose work shaped decades of speculative fiction, writing I Am Legend, Hell House, What Dreams May Come, and the short story that became the classic Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, along with other episodes of that anthology series. His 100th birthday centenary this year is being marked in horror publishing with the non-fiction anthology Mathesontennial: 100 Years of Richard Matheson, edited by Monsterama co-chair Anthony Taylor, per nineonefortyfive. Beyond his literary output and Twilight Zone scripts, Matheson also wrote the teleplay for the 1972 ABC Movie of the Week The Night Stalker, which set a record at the time as the highest-rated TV movie in American television history with a 33.2 rating and a 54 share, according to Wikipedia, a success that spawned the Kolchak: The Night Stalker series.
Pass Prices and Registration Times for the Weekend
Monsterama Con offered a full menu of pass options for anyone hoping to drop in for just part of the weekend. One-day passes were available for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday individually, alongside three-day passes covering the whole run, per FOX 5 Atlanta's report. Friday and Sunday one-day passes were priced at $30, while Saturday's single-day pass ran $35; the three-day pass was set at $55.
Registration hours were staggered across the weekend, running from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Programming beyond the guest panels included the annual Monster Prom, a dealer hall for vintage horror collectibles, and retro movie screenings alongside guest discussion panels, according to the Monsterama Con site. The convention offered shopping, screenings, panels, and celebrity appearances throughout, with the Monsterama website serving as the primary source for schedule details.
Why Atlanta Keeps Drawing the Genre Crowd
The convention returned to the Atlanta Marriott Northeast/Emory Area at 2000 Century Boulevard NE, a DeKalb County property containing more than 18,000 square feet of total event space anchored by the 5,000-square-foot Century Ballroom, according to Discover DeKalb. That capacity has helped the con grow into what Atlanta's own Kitley's Krypt has described as the city's only dedicated retro horror and science fiction convention, founded in 2014 by author, journalist, and genre historian Anthony Taylor, who continues to co-chair the event.
The convention's staying power also reflects the region's broader relationship with the genre. Metro Atlanta and Georgia have developed into a major global hub for horror and speculative screen production, generating over $6 billion in annual economic impact and hosting major titles like The Walking Dead and Stranger Things, according to Cabretta Capital. That production footprint has helped cultivate exactly the kind of dedicated fan community that keeps a 13-year-old convention like Monsterama filling hotel ballrooms every summer.
Taylor's own credentials extend into the same world the convention celebrates. He was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards Monster Kid Hall of Fame in June 2024 and authored the February 2026 art history book Classic Monsters, Modern Art, according to Insight Editions. Reporter Paul Milliken covered the convention for FOX 5's Good Day Atlanta segment, spotlighting the anniversaries and guest lineup as the weekend's main draws for genre fans across the metro area.
