Connecticut’s Horrorfest looms large with two days of familiar frightening faces and murderous mayhem

As the nights grow longer and the shadows loom larger, the eighth annual Connecticut HorrorFest will be lurking Friday and Saturday at the Naugatuck Event Center. The fest used to be a one-day affair but has been expanded to a full weekend, featuring dozens of familiar faces from classic horror movies and TV shows and panel discussions devoted to the“Friday the 13th” series, “Re-Animator,” the 2018 “The Haunting of Hill House” miniseries and the metal band Anthrax.

The HorrorFest is organized by the online Horror News Network and run by that nether worldly network’s husband-and-wife team of Rob and Christine Caprilozzi.

The “Friday the 13th” panel, on Friday at 6:15 p.m. features two different actors who’ve donned hockey masks to play the murderous role of Jason: Ari Lehman from the first film in the series and CJ Graham from the sixth.

Two members of Anthrax — co-founder Scott Ian and current bassist Frank Bello — will talk on Friday at 7:15 p.m. about that long-lived headbanging band, which marked its 40th anniversary last year.

The “Re-Animator” panel, Friday at 8:15 p.m., has two of the stars of that 1985 film (based on the H.P. Lovecraft story), Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs.

There are four people in “The Haunting of Hill House” discussion: series creator Mike Flanagan and cast members Kate Siegel, Annabeth Gish and Henry Thomas. Thomas is also known to horror fans from the TV movie “Psycho IV,” the anthology series “Masters of Horror” and “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” and two other Flanagan projects: the movie “Doctor Sleep” (based on the Stephen King novel) and the more recent “Haunting” series, “The Haunting of Bly Manor” (based this time on works by Henry James rather than Shirley Jackson). Gish is known to fans of Connecticut-set movies as a star of “Mystic Pizza.”

The “Night of the Living Dead” panel, Saturday at 4:15 p.m., brings together a producer/bespectacled zombie (Russ Streiner) and two actors (Judith O’Dea and Kyra Schon, who played Barbara and Karen, respectively) from the original 1968 George Romero masterpiece.

Also on hand: Keith David from the John Carpenter classics “The Thing” and “They Live”; Tom Payne from “The Walking Dead”; Milly Shapiro from the 2018 film “Hereditary” and the Broadway musical “Matilda”; Robert Brian Wilson from “Silent Night, Deadly Night”; Scottish actor Ian McCulloch from Lucio Fulci’s “Zombie”; Portuguese wrestling star Killer Kelly; and horror comic book artist Jeff Zornow (”Godzilla: Rulers of Earth”).

The costume contests, with cash prizes, are Saturday afternoon at 2:45 p.m. for children and at 3:30 p.m. for adults.

The festival is not all about death and undeath: a charity raffle will be held for Naugatuck’s Animals for Life cat shelter.

The CT HorrorFest convention happens Friday from 4 to 9 p.m.; and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Naugatuck Event Center, 6 Rubber Ave., Naugatuck. Admission is $20 on Friday and $25 on Saturday. Free for children 10 and under with paid adult. Early entry to vendors’ area with pre-ordered tickets. horrornewsnetwork.net.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.