A look back at Horror Movie Month... 3 months later

For me, October has always been a month for Horror movies, I guess, but it's only been the last few years that I've made a big deal about it. Probably because I got little else going on in my life of note. I usually challenge myself with 31 movies in 31 nights, and that was the goal this year as well.

However, I added a twist to it by making a list of 31 Horror flicks I had never seen before, like Scanners and Suspiria. Some Horror auteur's work I hadn't got around to yet, like Romero's Monkey Shines and Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow. And a bunch of stuff I'd heard of, but never really made the effort to track down like The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Pumpkinhead, and The Wizard of Gore. But with all this new (to me) stuff, what about my old stand-by classics? Scream? Insidious? The Thing? The Mist? I couldn't ignore those babies, could I?

So I went a step further by extending my personal challenge to 50 Horror movies in October, 31 of which would be fresh material. I was pretty excited about the whole thing (sadly), and jumped right in with unbridled enthusiasm. However something became clear during the first week. Some of these movies are not very good. And some are downright awful. That would be fine under most viewing circumstances. I've sat through plenty of bad movies. But when it's a bad double feature followed up the next day with another stinker? It wears down the resolve. Watching these things became a chore pretty quickly and even the good stuff became less enjoyable than it should have been. Several movies I barely grasped and struggled to maintain consciousness throughout.

Towards the end, I lost interest in achieving my ridiculous goal, although I probably would have succeeded had I not become very busy repairing my floors and ceiling during the last week of the month. I made it to 42, 33 of which I had never seen before. Despite the garbage, a lot of good stuff in there too. Videodrome and From Beyond stand out as maybe the best, while The Wizard of Gore and Dr. Giggles were probably the worst.

Not a bad Horror Movie Month, but next year my goal will be far simpler.


Here's a complete rundown of the movies I hacked through in October...

1. CANDYMAN  8/10
2. THE CONJURING  8/10 
3. ANNABELLE  5/10
4. THE ROOST  4/10
5. DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW  5/10
6. FREAKS  7/10
7. THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW  5/10
8. EVENT HORIZON  7/10
9. DR. GIGGLES  2/10
10. THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN  6/10
11. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)  7/10 
12. HOUSE  5/10
13. HELLRAISER 8: HELLWORLD  2/10
14. MONKEY SHINES  4/10
15. DEAD SNOW  6/10
16. THE SIGNAL  7/10
17. VIDEODROME  8/10
18. CHILDREN OF THE CORN  6/10
19. SOMEONE'S WATHCING ME  5/10
20. SUSPIRIA  6/10
21. THE STUFF  5/10
22. THE WIZARD OF GORE  3/10
23. SHIVERS  4/10
24. HALLOWEEN 3: SEASON OF THE WITCH  6/10
25. HATCHET 2  8/10
26. BLOOD CREEK  6/10
27. MANIAC COP  5/10
28. THE PROPHECY  5/10
29. C.H.U.D.  5/10
30. BODY BAGS  6/10
31. PET SEMETARY  7/10
32. THE CABIN IN THE WOODS  9/10
33. HALLOWEEN (1978)  10/10
34. CHAIN LETTER  3/10
35. PUMPKINHEAD  6/10
36. PSYCHO  9/10 
37. SCANNERS  7/10
38. THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD  7/10
39. SAW  6/10
40. YOU'RE NEXT  8/10 
41. THE BURNING  5/10
42. FROM BEYOND  8/10

I also managed to squeeze in John Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy (The Thing, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness) about a week into November when I finally had my Halloween party.  Sadly, no Evil Dead films...