By the time the doors open, the convention has already been underway in miniature for days. The guest list gets updated. Photo-op schedules start to matter. People decide which movie poster, VHS sleeve, comic, prop or wonderfully impractical piece of memorabilia is coming along for an autograph. By Friday afternoon, a hotel that normally exists for meetings, business travel and the occasional wedding has become something else entirely.
That transformation happens in Iselin this weekend when the New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival returns to the Delta Hotels Woodbridge for three days, Sept. 25 through 27. Organizers are billing this as the 20th New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival, with a mix of celebrity appearances, independent horror screenings, Q&A sessions, vendors, cosplay, trivia and photo opportunities spread across the weekend.
The celebrity side of the show has plenty of gravity. The current lineup includes Susan Sarandon, Kevin Smith, Dee Wallace, Brian O'Halloran, Kristy Swanson, Barbara Crampton, Christine Elise, Alex Vincent, Sean Patrick Flanery and Felissa Rose, among others. Guest schedules vary by day: Sarandon is currently scheduled for Saturday, Smith for Sunday, Wallace for Friday and Saturday, and O'Halloran for Saturday and Sunday. As with any convention, appearances can change, so the event's official guest page is the best place to check before making a trip around one particular name.
Smith's Sunday appearance is an especially Jersey addition to a weekend already rooted in local genre culture. His professional photo-op window is currently listed for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. For a filmmaker whose career has remained so tightly connected to New Jersey, dropping him into a horror convention in Iselin feels less like a celebrity parachuting into town and more like another branch of the state's increasingly interconnected convention ecosystem.
But the part that makes NJ Horror Con more interesting than a simple autograph hall is the other half of its name. This is also a film festival, and the event positions independent horror alongside the actors, collectors and fandom built around established movies. The festival's stated mission includes promoting filmmakers and artists from New Jersey and the broader tri-state area, with screenings, filmmaker participation and awards sharing space with the convention floor.
That creates a useful collision. Horror is a genre that lives comfortably in both directions at once. Fans can spend part of the day celebrating films they have loved for decades, then walk into a screening where somebody is trying to create the thing people may be talking about years from now. The nostalgia is real, but it is not the entire point. The same crowd that arrives carrying an old poster can also become the first audience for something new.
One of the films making a stop at the festival is Arbor Day: The Root of Evil, an independent practical-effects horror anthology that premiered earlier this year at Smodcastle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands. Its roadshow has been taking the movie city to city with screenings and filmmaker Q&As, and the New Jersey Horror Con stop brings that circuit back into New Jersey. It is a good example of what the film-festival side can add to a weekend otherwise packed with recognizable faces: a direct line between horror fans and people still making strange new things for them to watch.
The convention floor should offer another version of that same exchange. Event materials advertise roughly 100 vendors, along with artists, dealers and horror-related merchandise. That is often where the real personality of a regional con shows up. Celebrity names may get someone through the door, but tables full of handmade work, old toys, posters, masks, records, art and objects nobody planned to buy are what can turn a quick visit into several hours of wandering.
New Jersey Horror Con opens Friday from 5 to 10 p.m., continues Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and runs Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The organizers also list a Saturday-night after-event from 9 to 11 p.m. The official FAQ currently lists pre-show admission at $35, with day-of-door pricing of $40 Friday, $45 Saturday and $40 Sunday, plus a three-day pass for $90. Children 10 and under are listed as free with a paying adult. Parking at the hotel is free, according to the event FAQ.
RMN will be on site this weekend, less interested in checking boxes than in seeing what actually happens once the doors open. The guest list is the advance. The schedule is the plan. The story usually turns up somewhere between them - in the line, at a vendor table, outside a screening, during a Q&A, or in the conversation nobody knew was going to happen.
For a weekend built around horror, that seems appropriate. The best part is not knowing exactly what is waiting around the corner.
Event Details
| Dates & hours | Sept. 25-27, 2026 | Fri. 5-10 p.m. | Sat. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. | Sun. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. |
|---|---|
| Location | Delta Hotels Woodbridge, 515 U.S. Route 1 South, Iselin, NJ 08830 |
| Tickets | Pre-show admission listed at $35; door pricing varies by day; three-day pass listed at $90. |
| Official site | newjerseyhorrorcon.com |
SOURCE NOTES
Official information and listings verified against public pages on September 23, 2026. Observational passages are based on the reporter's advance dispatch. Event details are subject to change; check organizers before travel.