Editor’s Note: The links within all point back to the original sources. Perhaps one day I will fix them but more than likely I will keep them as is to honor the past (and because it is so much easier). Links to the AVC are likely off due to the Kinja switchover.
Consider this merely an announcement thread, but starting October 1st, I will be bringing back my annual month of horror. This will be my third year posting about this and I believe year five overall. If you want to go back and read through the past couple either on the AV Club starting with these for 2014 or 2015 or you can view uploaded Google Docs versions of each for 2014 and 2015. Feel free to marvel at all my lousy writing I can’t even bear to review.
The mission as always is for me to watch (at least) one horror movie I’ve never seen before each day of October since horror and October go together like no other genre and month (well aside from maybe Christmas movies and December the difference being that few Christmas movies deserve to exist). Not only that, horror is perhaps my favorite genre and it is rare that I don’t get something out of even a lousy one. And boy will there be lousy ones.
Last year I saw 62 horror films, 3 shorts, and 1 TV episode from 38 countries for the World Edition and there were more than a few pieces of crap. The running theme being awful twists, apparently a universal human trait. This year the theme will instead be subgenres. I could do another trip around the globe but it was hard enough finding movies from that many countries as is and I really don’t have much more to say about the cinemas of each nation (also stagnation is boring). Thankfully there are more than 31 of them to go around so I’m all good there though I will be cheating a bit in a few cases which I will explain more when I get to them. At the most basic though Universal, Hammer, and AIP have such recognizable (and distinct from the rest of horror cinema) house styles that they deserve their own separate look and the approach of Japanese (and for that matter Asian cinema) to ghosts is so unique to the Western that I felt separating it from supernatural was completely fair.
Each night at around midnight (or later when I inevitably fall behind, forget, or am otherwise occupied) I will post these discussions which serve as a mix of history, analysis, and opinion along with potentially some bonus episodes because really 31 horror movies in a month are not enough for me. Any requests for specific movies will likely be ignored because I doubt I will have time for them or have already seen them before (or because I don’t care). Without any further delay here is the basic schedule along with a link to my Google Sheets file with the complete list with details which I will update daily with my progress and possibly scheduled bonus episodes. Also at the bottom feel free to notice my list of movies I’m ashamed to have never seen which I haven’t moved yet for reasons of couldn’t be arsed. I reserve the right to change this for whatever reason such as Netflix not sending me the disc, Netflix sending me a disc in Italian with no English subtitles, or I misread what day it is (all 3 happened last year).
10/1/2016 – Bone Tomahawk – Western
10/2/2016 – Kuroneko – Ghost (Japanese)
10/3/2016 – Piranha/The Shallows – Natural
10/4/2016 – Poltergeist III/Poltergeist – Supernatural
10/5/2016 – I Still Know What You Did Last Summer/Prom Night – Slasher
10/6/2016 – Cooties – Comedy
10/7/2016 – Juan of the Dead – Zombies
10/8/2016 – The Witch – Witches
10/9/2016 – Asylum Anthology
10/10/2016 – Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival – Musical
10/11/2016 – Krampus – Holiday
10/12/2016 – Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man – Universal
10/13/2016 – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Silent
10/14/2016 – Frontier(s) – New French Extremity
10/15/2016 – Audition – Psychological
10/16/2016 – Ichi the Killer – Splatter
10/17/2016 – 90’s Gamera Trilogy – Kaiju
10/18/2016 – The Revenge of Frankenstein – Frankenstein
10/19/2016 – Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell – Sci-Fi
10/20/2016 – The Oblong Box – Poe
10/21/2016 – Dagon – Lovecraftian
10/22/2016 – Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom – Art
10/23/2016 – Pulse – Tech
10/24/2016 – Deep Red – Giallo
10/25/2016 – Rasputin, the Mad Monk – Hammer
10/26/2016 – Taste the Blood of Dracula/Scars of Dracula – Vampire
10/27/2016 – Month long AIP Marathon – AIP
10/28/2016 – Cannibal Holocaust – Found Footage
10/29/2016 – The Wolf Man – Werewolf
10/30/2016 – Them/Sleep Tight/Hush? – Home Invasion
10/31/2016 – Black Sunday – Gothic Horror