It’s been a while since I’ve done a blog like this about my October horror movie watching. I kind of wanted to this year.
I began this in October of 2003. It served a primary purpose initially of working on getting through the horror movies in my Netflix Queue at the time, but over the years, the selection has been less about watching new-to-me movies and more about rewatching some of my favorite from the genre. In 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2013, an added wrinkle happened when I was so inspired by what I was watching, and hearing, that I began to write music that captured the essence of horror I was experiencing each year. This month, to honor that part of my Octobers, I did a virtual concert over Facebook of several of the pieces I’ve written over those years, which you can watch below.
One thing that is different in this year’s post about my viewing is that I will not be listing the movies I’ve watched this year like normally. Over the past couple of years, I’ve started to chart my moviewatching on Letterboxd, and this October was no different for horror movies. You can find that list here to get a glimpse of everything I’ve seen.
The picture accompanying this blog on the News page of Sonic Cinema is one of all the horror films I was originally planning on limiting myself to watching this October, save for my four Repertory Revue selections (“An American Werewolf in London”, “The Ghost Ship”, “Videodrome” and “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare”. Part of that has to do with my Patreon-exclusive project involving the directorial career of Clive Barker, which is available for all subscription levels at www.patreon.com/soniccinema, which involved the most significant level of book reading I’ve done in many years, but also, I did not feel like over-exerting myself after two straight months of film festivals. When my full-time job went back on furlough at the start of the month, however, I found myself with more time than I anticipated, so I figured, “why not?”
The truth is, horror has become a significant part of my 2020 movie diet between the releases that HAVE happened this year, and the film festivals I’ve covered this year. A lot of the best, and my favorite, movies of the year- none of them were part of my October watching this year, but I hope that many are in the years to come, and I’ll break down some of those at the end of the year. I understand the reticence to back away from the genre for a lot of people this year given the state of the world, but this has become a tradition for me, and I wanted to uphold it as much as possible.
Of the 59 horror (or horror-inspired) films I watched this past month, 21 were new watches, unless you include the director’s cuts of Clive Barker’s “Nightbreed” and “Lord of Illusions” I saw for the first time as part of my Barker deep-dive. Of those 21, there were only a few I can see making it into a regular rotation year in and year out, like the clever “Found Footage 3D” or the original “The Wicker Man” and “Candyman”. Hulu’s film, “Books of Blood”, was a fun addition to my month of Clive Barker, but only one of the segments is really strong. Of the four films released in Amazon’s Welcome to the Blumhouse series, only “Black Blood” is one I might revisit, and that’s mainly as a possible review. Three of my 1980s horror first-time watches, “Slumber Party Massacre”, “Pieces”, and “C.H.U.D.”, are probably never going to be watched again. (The fourth, “Dead & Buried”, will very much be rewatched for a full review in the future.) The recent remake of “Suspiria” is a big meal I’ll definitely rewatch in the future and write about, but it’s not going to be a regular fixture for me. Why do “Found Footage 3D”, “The Wicker Man”, and “Candyman” stand out? Because they all have both entertainment value, and a hook that draws us in to a wonderfully unique macabre world, and keep us intrigued every step of the way.
The reason we rewatch movies is because of not just a comfort level with them, but because we also find ourselves finding something we didn’t necessarily realize before. Like the symmetrical storytelling of the first two “Friday the 13th” movies (and I’m really looking forward to digging into Scream Factory’s box set next October). Rewatching the two chapters of the recent “IT” movies in quick succession for the first time in a year, and finding that they actually go together much better than I originally thought they did last year. And finally watching Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Mike Flanagan’s “Doctor Sleep” almost back-to-back, it was easier to piece together the ways the latter was inspired by the former. Or seeing what a fresh watch can provide after almost two decades, such as the case with the films I discuss in my podcast about four horror films from the year 2000. And was I surprised by the reaction I had on Halloween night to the cult classic, “Carnival of Souls”, which I had last seen during a RiffTrax Live event; after this rewatch, I might have a new regular film in the rotation.
Inspiration will have to strike in the future for me to write about another October, especially if it’s a musical inspiration. Until then, though, the spirit will live on in horror-themed podcasts in the years to come.
Viva La Resistance!
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
