Hasn’t 2020 been scary enough you say? Hasn’t there been enough real life terror and fright and despair? I feel you. There are people that don’t get Halloween. They don’t enjoy the Halloween movies. In this year more than ever, you have to do what keeps you sane. Find your semblance of ‘normal’. For me, it’s watching the end of the world. The fictional one. With zombies. Not the real one with runs on toilet paper. Heh runs. Diarrhea joke.
2020 ain’t gonna stop me from doing what I’ve done for eight years straight. I spend every night of October watching a scary movie. Sometimes it’s a scary thriller, sometimes a scary slasher. One year I watched Slender Man but that was scary for totally different reasons. Of course that was back when Hollywood was releasing new movies. In a different universe I saw Conjuring 3 and Halloween Kills this year. So no, movies aren’t back yet, but we have 100 years of scary movies to pull from. 2020 can be a time to catch up on all those films you’ve been meaning to watch. There’s a lot of sad stuff about the coronavirus, but there’s always a silver lining.
Shameless plug time! I tweet my list every year, did it before I had a magazine that published my shit, and I’ll do it after they fire me for only writing two articles since March. (letter to my editor, please forgive me but seriously theaters are closed. We review new movies. It’s rough.) Anyway follow me! And I have written this same article twice before. 2018 is here, and 2019 is here. It’s gonna look similar; date & movie title, gif, paragraph review. Formulas are the key to content. Little advice for future creators out there. Also try to publish more often than once every four months. And if the whole point of your article is a list of movies, don’t write an overly long preamble before you start the list.
Happy Halloween!
October 1: The Howling
There was a full moon on October first this year. Or at least something that looked like one, I haven’t consulted my star chart. Anyway, that’s got to be a good omen for the month of spooky right? So let’s start the marathon in theme with the best werewolf movie in western cinema. Gothic organ, the psychological fear that it’s all in your head, and a half decent looking monster (which is harder than you might think in werewolf history, see also: Harry Potter 3, American Werewolf, and sorry to Lon Chaney Jr, but you had the worst makeup of the Universal era to work with too.) Joe Dante is an October All-Star.
October 2: Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
The Thorn Trilogy’s mediocre conclusion! Really this movie is a textbook example of creators vs. producers. Daniel Farrands was a huge Halloween fan and was given the impossible task to write the follow-up to Revenge where a mysterious man broke Michael Myers out of jail. Who is that man, what does the mark of the thorn mean, how does the Strode family fit in to it all? Who cares! All the evil studio (embodied so appropriately by the Weinsteins who acquired the franchise with this installment) cared about was how Friday the 13th outgrossed them at every turn. So they commissioned a producer’s cut with more violent deaths and less silly plot. Of course as is *always the case with reshoots, neither version was actually good.
*But Zach Snyder’s Justice League will be different right? Right?
October 3: Maniac Cop
What if those tasked to serve and protect couldn’t be trusted. If as you thought you were running to safety, you were actually running into the arms of the killer? Most slashers just make adults and law enforcement incompetent, but the truth is much scarier. I know what year I’m watching movies in. 2020 will be remembered for more than just it’s lack of movies and pandemic.
October 4: Final Destination 3
Not the only time Love Rollercoaster by Ohio Players comes up this month. Also not the last time Mary Elizabeth Winstead comes up this month. This one is peak Final Destination. The photos taken before the accident foretell the way everyone dies. The order and lore of death are perfect. And ya know the kills are cool. More than any other slasher, these movies need cool kills and FD3 wins.
October 5: Final Destination 4 (or The Final Destination, if you believe titles)
Box Office numbers in franchises frustrate me. Often they are indicative of the wrong movie or outside circumstances. For example. This is the highest grossing FD flick, despite being just the worst. Honestly, it’s the only one of these that I don’t outright love. The third was fantastic so people wanted to shell out to see the fourth. It was billed as the last one, people love seeing how it all ends, even if it isn’t actually the end. Looking at you Infinity War. Oh and 3D. That’ll artificially jack up the numbers. Looking at you Avatar. Freaking these movies couldn’t even make the third one in 3D like a normal horror franchise?
October 6: Final Destination 5
Rewatching them this year confirmed it, this is my favorite horror franchise. I’m a risk adverse fella, so 1. I would never find myself in any of the situations in these movies, but 2. I prefer a high floor to a high ceiling. There is a standard you can expect out of Final Destination. None of them are in my top 20 horror movies, but none are awful either. And the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when this movie ties in with the others. Tony Todd is back. Death is coming.
October 7: The Village
This is where M. Night crossed the rubicon. Sure Sixth Sense and Unbreakable had twist endings but they were good movies. Okay so the aliens in Signs were allergic to water, but the aliens in War of the Worlds were allergic to, like, allergies so not the stupidest twist right? And it’s not only that this twist is dumb, but he knows you’re expecting a twist. Sixth Sense is fantastic because of rewatchability, but knowing what’s coming makes the ending to The Village DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG. Also the dialog is mostly old timey, but seems cheap when compared to The VVitch.
October 8: mother!
Far be it for me to tell the guy that made Black Swan how to do allegories, but the story you’re telling needs to stand on it’s own without knowledge of the ‘source material’. Now when the source material is quite possibly the oldest book of all time, you might be excused. But the first half follows the story religiously, and the second act just goes off the rails. So I never got really tense for Mother Nature while I was just watching Genesis play out before me, but I was too confused to feel anything in the back half. Neither half worked and for completely different reasons. Weird movie, but also Aronofsky movie.
October 9: The Love Witch
This is a damn gem. I love a movie that knows its audience and freaking plays to it. This wasn’t a big studio movie that had to make 1 billion dollars from everyone, their dog, and the entire country of China. It was just a small genre piece that committed. You can watch the whole thing and just imagine it was made in 1969. And the credit really goes to the person who loved those movies enough to make this one, writer/director/editor/producer/composer Anna Biller. A quintuple threat for the ages.
October 10: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
At first I thought Leonard Nimoy was third impostering. Poor Jeff Goldblum was just trying to do his tasks when he was got. It ended in defeat for the good guys. In addition to the whole pandemic thing happening, I’ll remember October 2020 as the month of Among Us. It was between watching this and Alien, but a Xenomorph isn’t quite as subtle as a pod person.
October 11: Videodrome
It’s the visuals that matter in this movie anyway, you don’t have to pay attention to what I’m saying. Don’t pay attention to anything. Just watch movies all day. Don’t leave the house. Watch your professors on video. Experiment. Long live the new flesh.
October 12: Repo! The Genetic Opera
The horror-comedy is a natural genre mashup, but the horror-musical is my personal favorite. Horror-musical-comic book might be made specifically for me. The backstory is told through animations and the world is fantastic. When I saw Anthony Head singing I immediately thought of Buffy’s Once More With Feeling and apparently that’s where the director got the idea for him too. Until our debts are clear, we’ll all live in fear of the Repo Man.
October 13: Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives
Supernatural Zombie Jason is here y’all. Good thing they brought the hockey mask to the grave while making sure he is dead before accidentally reviving him Frankenstein lightning style. Not only is this the dumbest Tommy Jarvis, it’s also the worst. It’s my second favorite Friday film though after Part 4. And if you’re asking why the sixth one for this and Halloween it’s because I watch one every year. Don’t worry, I won’t run out anytime soon.
October 14: The Last Man on Earth
Based on the novel I am Legend (hey I think I’ve seen another movie based on that book) this takes doctor Vincent Price through the post-virus apocalypse. You never notice how often that trope shows up until you live in a world where it’s becoming more science and less fiction by the day. Anyway these are NOT zombies. They act like it and they inspired Romero, but they are clearly vampires. Stake through the heart, garlic fearing, mirror avoiding vampires.
October 15: The Turning
Remember 10 years ago in January of 2020 when there were new movies in the theater? We all took it for granted. I’ll bet you didn’t even go see the newest adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. I mean, it’s probably better that you didn’t because it’s awful. And now we’ve got The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix. The sooner we can turn the page on The Turning the better. See that pun was extra effective because I brought up the fact that it’s based on a book. Turn the page. Turning. Okay.
October 16: Hubie Halloween
Look I don’t even like good Adam Sandler. His weird man-child humor has never done it for me. But I’ll be dang if I don’t love just about anything that’s Halloween adjacent. This ain’t no Boo! A Madea Halloween or Ernest Scared Stupid, but it’s watchable. And new. And free with your roommate’s Netflix subscription. Check it out.
October 17: The Blackcoat’s Daughter
It’s really important when watching 31 movies in a row to chase an Adam Sandler movie with something good. I have one weird gripe with this and it’s that all teenage white girls look the same. So spoilers kind of, but understanding the ending is reliant on believing that two of these actresses play the same girl a few years apart. They should look similar. Problem is I thought the wrong two girls looked the same. Like totally devoid of the fact that I’m supposed to think the other two are similar. AND they all look the same age, even though it’s important to know that one is older. But I’m also glad there wasn’t CGI or the same girl playing both because that would ruin the surprise. It’s really a great possession story about loneliness in the modern age. I just have bad facial recognition.
October 18: Plan 9 From Outer Space
So the aliens’ plan 9 for invasion is to bring people back from the dead looking like classic movie monsters. What were plans 1-8 and how could they have failed given that amazing preparation? This is the purest form of B-movie drive-in schlock. The aliens are just normal actors, the plot is nonsense, and the spaceships are cardboard on a stick. But Ed Wood plunged in anyway!
October 19: Mars Attacks!
Tim Burton was making Ed Wood at the same time and the inspiration is clear. The only reason I couldn’t really get into this is because it seemed half cocked. The aliens look bad, but not laughably bad. The dialog is stiff and dated, but only half the time. Jack Nicholson plays two different guys, but I would have loved it more if he got his wish and played everybody. Genre satire can be really tricky to pull off, and it feels like that’s what Tim Burton wanted, but the studio wanted a serious alien invasion movie. Kinda like how Ed Wood always wanted to make grand epics, but his budget and talent got him something totally different.
October 20: The Invisible Man (1933)
There has been at least one good movie (but not more than four) released in 2020 so far. The Invisible Man (2020) was Universal’s first foray back into their monsters vault since…well do I have to talk about it? I grew up on these monsters. Staying up late with my nose up to the screen watching TCM around this time of year is why I am who I am. And in my expert opinion this is the scariest movie of the batch. Claude Rains knows how to convey crazy, villainous, and deadly with just his voice. And when the monster you play is literally invisible, that’s all you have.
October 21: The Blob (1988)
Of all the un-scary monsters we made movies about in the 50’s, a great pink blob takes the cake. But The Blob has staying power, even cropping up along other classic monsters in Hotel Transylvania. Because that is truly the measuring stick of a monster. But in 1988 Chuck Russell made a blob terrifying. This blob was unstoppable, strong, and deadly. It was the 80’s and so we needed cool kills, and The Blob gave us faces melting off, limb devouring, and deadly boob grabs! Hey, he was asking for it.
October 22: The Witches (2020)
I will take whatever new horror movies I can get at this point. And this was worth it. As long as I remember to cancel that free week of HBO Max. The 1990 version of this Roald Dahl classic was at the forefront of makeup and puppetry. But practical effects aren’t as practical anymore when making a movie, and when you need someone willing to push the boundaries of CGI, you call Zemeckis. Anne Hathaway and her baffling accent take the role of the grand high witch, Stanley Tucci is Mr. Bean, and Chris Rock narrates. It’s fun.
October 23: Return of the Living Dead
What do you know about zombies? 1. They are the undead. 2. They slowly amble around. 3. They eat brains. Simple, and these movie monsters were invented on the screen by George A. Romero and John A. Russo in Night of the Living Dead. The pair had a little falling out and the sequels from that classic branch in two directions. Romero makes Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and so on, but in a legal battle for rights that no one cares about but me, Russo gets the ‘Living Dead’ branding. So Return of the Living Dead is his. His zombies are grosser, smarter, and vocal. This is the movie where they make their hunger for brains known for the first time. Braaaiiiiiiiiiiins.
October 24: Planet Terror
Part 1 of the Grindhouse double feature created by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. This is its better half with Rose McGowan’s grenade launcher/rifle/Gatling gun leg. The old crackling camera effect is more consistent in this half, but maybe you find that annoying. Also this one where Jeff Fahey is lying on the ground with his intestines out, except they aren’t his intestines or zombie intestines, they’re just sausage in bbq sauce. Then Freddie Rodriguez takes a big bite. Cinema.
October 25: Death Proof
Like Mars Attacks!, The Love Witch, and the first act of One Cut of the Dead to come, Grindhouse really tries to emulate a certain time and style of bad movie. Whatever you say about Tarantino two things are indisputable and never more clear than in this film. He loves feet and he is a movie nerd. The problem is only when he is too busy Tarantino-ing. The lost reels and kung-fu and blood squick belong in a low budget car movie, but the 360 restaurant talking shot is still just Tarantino. He even admits this is his worst movie (maybe he hadn’t finished watching Hateful Eight yet) but if that’s true, it’s still pretty good.
October 26: Urban Legend
Post-Scream 90’s slashers are my happy place. They all have a feel that I hope in 20 more years we get Grindhouse style homages to. This is the one where the killer’s hook (as opposed to this killer’s hook) is basing kills off urban legends. Shocking I know, but remember this era gave us explanatory titles like I Know What You Did Last Summer. Whose killer also had a hook.
October 27: One Cut of the Dead
Every year I go into this marathon with a list. I don’t plan every day, I’m just not the planning sort, but I do have a list of franchises, classics, and some movies I haven’t seen. This is exactly the kind of film I start the month hoping to stumble on. It’s a new favorite, and it’s still relatively new, and it’s foreign so it’s probably new to a lot of people reading. It’s also spoilable so I’ll just leave it that I loved it and move on.
October 28: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Maybe, just maybe, you’ve been able to tell by the type of smut I watch all month long that I’m not exactly a proper movie critic. I never went to film school. I study more the ways of Joe Bob Briggs than Henri Bergson (I just pulled the first name off of the film theory Wikipedia page. Like I said, no film school.) But even I can make an exception to watch a classic. Especially when it celebrates it’s 100th anniversary this year and is pretty much responsible for horror as we know it.
October 29: Black Christmas
50-some-odd-years after Caligari, horror was changing face. Out were the classic monsters and Beauty/Beast stories. In was the slasher. POV introductory shots, ‘the call is coming from inside the house’, bending horror with non-Halloween holidays. All tropes that were made more famous in other movies, but that were pioneered by Bob Clark and Black Christmas.
October 30: Psycho II
Every horror franchise gets a sequel. No exceptions. No matter how classy or self-contained or long ago the original was. It took 23 years before going back to the Psycho well but the studio just couldn’t say no to that 80’s slasher box office. The good news is this one isn’t bad. Anthony Perkins is back and still captures that innocent boy with a confused dark side. This time he shoulders a larger role and matures the character. But for as much criticism Psycho’s ending gets, this one is worse.
October 31: Psycho
This is the movie I’ve seen most in my adult life. Sure we all have that one Disney movie that we can still accidentally quote every word of even after not seeing it in a decade (for me, Toy Story). So now I look for a new way to view this movie every time I watch it. This year it was in the wake of watching the sequel. Although the acting and story and mystery of the sequel mostly worked (until the end) it was the camera work of Alfred Hitchcock that I noticed this year. Too many horror movies just sort of get the kills on screen and not much more. Because of the low kill count in Psycho, Hitchcock spends time with the killer and establishing Norman with words and movie language. Hitchcock is the Master of Suspense for a reason.