Washington County native in running for best horror host
A South Strabane resident is a nominee in the best horror host category in the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, a contest that honors horror research, creativity and film preservation.
Erik Sprowls appears as “Captain Calico Drake” in the monster movie show “Dead and Buried Treasures.” His show is inspired by Bill Cardille’s “Chiller Theatre,” which was a mainstay on Pittsburgh television for 20 years. The show usually featured chillers starring the likes of Vincent Price or had monsters like Godzilla tearing a city apart with badly-dubbed actors running in fear.
“I remember growing up watching monster movies on “Chiller Theatre” in Pittsburgh,” Sprowls said. “I met Bill Cardille who hosted that show many times. It would be nice to do justice for Pittsburgh the way that he did.”
On each installment of “Dead and Buried Treasures,” Sprowls as Captain Calico Drake interacts with other performers in skits before, during and after each movie.
There are a little more than 30 entrants in the Rondo Awards’ best horror host category. Some of his competitors include “Count Gore De Vol,” “Halloween Harvey,” “Karlos Borloff” and “Sally the Zombie Cheerleader.”
The actor Chris Pressley, who has played the character Jasper the Undertaker on “Dead and Buried Treasures,” told the Herald-Standard in 2021, “Old movies can be fun to watch, but it’s even better when there’s a ‘show within a show.’ These horror hosts are breathing new life into these old movies and making them memorable again and adding new memories on top of them.”
“Dead and Buried Treasures” is available on various cable channels in the Pittsburgh region, and select episodes can also be seen on YouTube. It has also been picked up on cable systems in Erie, Hudson, Ohio, and Bedford, N.H., and on the Monster Channel and the Vortexx Horror Host Network.
Sprowls has taught at several colleges and universities, including Bethany College in Bethany, W.Va., and PennWest University when it was called California University of Pennsylvania.
The awards are named for the actor Rondo Hatton, who starred in several horror films in the 1930s and 1940s. Voting in the awards closes May 1. A ballot and information can be found at rondoaward.com.