MONSTER PROM at Scream Diego

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You did not get the prom you wanted the first time around. Almost nobody did, which is practically the defining feature of the event. So a horror convention in Mission Valley hands the night back with the lighting corrected: a proper dance, six to ten in the evening, set inside a weekend already full of practical effects artists and monster makeup and people who can talk for an hour about one creature suit. Dressing as the thing that frightened you at nine years old is not a costume in this ballroom, it is a dialect, and everyone present speaks it fluently. The crossover is what makes it work. Horror crowds and dark-alternative crowds rarely share a floor, and when they do the room takes on an unusual generosity, because nobody is the strangest person there and so nobody has to defend anything. Four hours. Comfortable shoes under the gown. The slow song still gets everybody.