Well, it is that time of year again. October might actually be my favourite time for movie watching because I usually shift gears for the month and focus on Horror/Thriller/Horror adjacent genre mash-ups, that’s right, it is now Octob-Horror! Usually for this month I like to set aside about 30 of these movies and try to watch as many as possible with the pie in the sky naive view that I may actually get about 30 in. However due to the intrusions of life usually I only get to about 10-12 (although one year I made it to 21 and was wicked proud of myself). There are no real limitations to what I will watch but I try to mix it up between big movies, indie movies, classics movies I either missed on the first go around or just want to rewatch and, if I am doing things right, a little bit of everything.

I came to the realization in the past couple of years that Horror may in fact be my favourite genre. It can fall prone to tropes sure, but that also allows it to buck the tropes and make things surprisingly great. Horror movies have the ability to combine cool practical (and special) effects, with good story-telling, characters and still be a well placed allegory for something else (although the allegory is optional, I like plenty of straight up horror it can be allegory or just plain gory and I will probably still be happy) all while pure awesomeness if happening on screen. Horror has given us some great enduring characters, some of the most iconic movie props of all time, and often it’s innovation has improved film-making for other genres as well. Horror can touch on a range of themes and offer new perspectives that would otherwise go unexplored. And most importantly with horror as it is primarily meant to elicit emotions such as fear, it stays with you. I vividly remember early horror entries I watched as a kid and when it comes to more recent watches I tend to have a stronger connection to horror and adjacent movies due to the emotions at play.

All this is to say, it is officially spooky season and I need some recommendations, so this weeks prompt is both simple and self serving: What would you recommend I (or anyone for that matter) watch for this month? As it is me asking for me I do not have a conventional answer for this prompt. I ordered a DVD that has 4 horror based movies which will be part of this months watching (I am really looking forward to Phantasm 2 so maybe that) and I am combing streaming services I have for potential candidates as well as my old DVD collection which I have not looked at in some time so there could be a few rewatch gems in the near future.

Spooky Season Recommendations