Film
Index
The 2010 Halloween Horror
Movie Challenge
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. "
And, so, another October Horror Movie Challenge is in the books. This year, I made a few challenges for myself in addition to the requirements to watch 31 movies with 16 being movies I've never seen before:
First, I wanted to watch nothing but movies I haven't seen before. I've been a little bit disconnected from horror for a while, and I wanted to get back to my roots. This was an opportunity to do just that.
Second, I wanted to write reasonably long reviews of every movie I saw, rather than the capsules I've settled for in past years. This is a way of building my archive of writings about horror movies, something I've also been kind of neglecting.
Third, I wanted to post something to my blog every day of October. I didn't quite make that particular benchmark, but it works out in the long run. I wound up with 32 posts for the month of October, even though there were a couple of days I missed, and one review of a non-horror movie (shame on me). I ended up with enough material to continue daily posting well after Halloween.
Finally, I wanted to connect with some of my horror movie friends. I like watching movies as a communal activity, and a Halloween horror movie party this year was just the thing for me, in spite of the fact that it was being held four states away from my house. I went anyway. Additionally, I started a Facebook group for the Challenge that attracted over 150 people.
All told, this was the most successful challenge I've ever completed, with new highs in number of films watched, number of new movies seen, and volume of writing. It's the social aspect that is particularly gratifying, though, because it destroyed that hermetic slog that the Challenge sometimes becomes for me. Thanks to all my friends who made this year such a pleasure.
My final tally this year: 37 viewings, all new to me (more or less--special pleading is involved with two films). If I count repeat viewings--which I'm not this year--my tally balloons up to 41. This is what I saw this year:
Stay
Werewolf Hunter: The Legend of Romasanta
Masters of Horror--Haeckel's Tale
Dreams of Cthulhu--The Rough Magick Initiative
The Black Belly of the Tarantula
The repeat viewings include:
I've written about all of these before. So that's that for this year. The i's are crossed and the "t's" are dotted. We'll do it all again next year.
11/6/2010