Editor’s Note: All of these links point to the channel but going forth I will be editing in links to the correct page on this site for all of 2017. This is merely for easy convenience for those seeking the old threads.
2017 has been quite the year for horror hasn’t it? It’s seen the release of a film which deserves to go down as one of the genre’s all-time greats in mother!, a trio of huge critical and box office successes for the genre in Split (which after being burned by The Visit I have avoided thus far), Get Out (which was really great), and It (which I know I have said in the past that judging by a trailer is wrong but it looks A Haunted House bad), one of the few films this year not only to be in line with it’s predecessor financially but improve upon it critically (substantially too) is a horror title in Annabelle: Creation, Resident Evil the video game saw a return to relevance and horror and Friday the 13th got a decently received title as well. It saw Bates Motel and Grimm come to an end, the debut of Santa Clarita Diet (I’m just as ashamed of me as you are for not getting to it yet, another series of the underrated Channel Zero is underway, another season of the underrated Wynonna Earp just wrapped up, and both the faux-horror series Underworld and the infuriatingly stupid The Strain have finally ended. It also saw a number of lower profile but well received films such as Prevenge(very good if unpolished), The Girl with All the Gifts (which was far too unintentionally silly for my taste), Raw (which every time I read the title gets “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” stuck in my head), It Comes at Night, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Devil’s Candy, Hounds of Love, The Lure, A Dark Song, The Void, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, The Transfiguration, We Are the Flesh, and Berlin Syndrome.
Sure Alien: Convenant and Life were released to collective shrugs despite pretty positive reviews, A Cure for Wellness couldn’t even manage the reviews and is one of the biggest bombs of the year, the long awaited The Poughkeepsie Tapessaw a proper release which saw such a decline from initial hype over a period of years being delayed not seen since All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, The Belko Experiment and Rings were critical disappointments, The Mist made a big whoopsie in its pants and failed to reach even Under the Dome levels of hilarity before I quit, and American Horror Story and The Walking Dead franchise still inexplicably define television horror for the masses but as a horror fan it’s a truly great time.
Starting October 1st, I will be bringing back my annual month of horror where I watch at least one new (to me) movie a day for the entire month. This will be my fourth year posting about this and I believe year six 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 for 2014 and 2015 or you can look down below as I include a link to every review I did last year (thanks me sometime in March for bothering to create that list).
As you can no doubt tell from the fact that I basically copy pasted a bunch of the last paragraph with minor changes (and couldn’t be arsed to fix the problems caused by Kinja in linking), I entered this year staring at a bit of a problem in the terms of enthusiasm. Even after six years of doing this thing, I still have a ton of movies I want to see, but my themes of the past two years (World Edition and Genre Exploration) coupled with the fact that I have seen most of the more prominent films of certain years and directors (don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you won’t get to read a discussion of James Wan and his beloved 2007 film Dead Silence) eliminated any good themes for this month. I was left adrift and for the first time not excited for this month to come (as well as the fact that I will be spending a week or so in St. Lucia during it making keeping the tradition up harder). Instead of starting to plan this shit out a month in advance, I write this sentence just over a week before the month begins.
But a sudden source of inspiration came to me (as well as a resurrected enthusiasm for film after seeing mother!). Fuck it, why do I have to limit myself to themes or lengthy deconstructions of genres, etc. I mean I still plan to do that for some of the countries and genres I’ve missed, but I think I’ve earned the opportunity to just call this year’s theme Dealer’s Choice and make it up as I go along. I hope to maintain the same level of quality you have come to expect of my write-ups *stifles laughter* but instead, I think this year deserves a celebration of horror as a whole and all the wonderful things that make it so special. I look forward to seeing you all in the weeks to come.
P.S. I’d like to thank two people for whom this would not have come back. I could name them but they deserve better than to be on the receiving end of your blame for this.
P.P.S. *Giggles saying that out loud cause I’m apparently a little kid* My freewheeling nature this year as well as my schedule also means that you won’t be getting the whole month’s schedule up at the beginning of the month. I do promise to keep the schedule updated though for those theoretical people following along at home to give some kind of indication what is on deck.
2016
Full Schedule
Intro
10/1 – Western: Bone Tomahawk
10/2 – Kaidan: Kuroneko
10/3 – Natural: Piranha
10/4 – Supernatural: Poltergeist III
10/5 – Slasher: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
10/6 – Comedy: Cooties
10/7 – Witches: The Witch
10/8 – Zombies: Juan of the Dead
10/9 – New French Extremity: Frontier(s)
10/10 – Musical: Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival
10/11 – Holiday: Krampus
10/12 – Universal: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
10/13 – Silent: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
10/14 – Anthology: Asylum
10/15 – Psychological: Audition
10/16 – Splatter: Ichi the Killer
10/17 – Kaiju: Gamera: Guardian of the Universe
10/18 – AIP: Day the World Ended
10/19 – Frankenstein: The Revenge of Frankenstein
10/20 – Sci-FI: Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell
10/21 – Lovecraftian: Dagon
10/22 – Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
10/23 – Tech: Pulse
10/24 – Giallo: Deep Red
10/25 – Poe: The Oblong Box
10/26 – Hammer: Rasputin, the Mad Monk
10/27 – Vampire: Taste the Blood of Dracula
10/28 – Found Footage: Cannibal Holocaust
10/29 – Werewolf: The Wolf Man
10/30 – Home Invasion: Them
10/31 – Gothic Horror: Black Sunday