So here I am again, continuing a time honored tradition of watching horror movies nonstop through the month of October.  The last ‘Fest seemed like it was only a few months ago; it certainly doesn’t feel like a whole year has passed.  But it’s September, 2011, and the time of lists has come. I have a dilemma, however.  I don’t watch horror movies only during the month of October.  I watch them year round, and have done so every year since I was very young.  That doesn’t leave much room for new discoveries.  Thankfully, new horror movies are being made each year, but unfortunately, quantity doesn’t equal quality, and the state of horror today leaves a lot to be desired.

A bit of trivia about me: I’ve collected the horror movie magazine, Fangoria, since I was seven or eight years old .  Those early issues have been lost to time and the many moves during my youth, but I took up serious collecting as an adult, as part of my serious study of the genre.  Recently, I’ve been visiting eBay and buying many of those early issues. Fangoria published its first issue in 1979, in response to the revival the genre was experiencing that decade.  Those early issues contained interviews with the luminaries of that world and articles about now classic titles—and the smaller ones now lost to time and memory.

As of this writing, I don’t have a clear idea about the nature of my contributions to this year’s Octoberfest.  Sometimes I choose the titles based on a theme (i.e. nature revolts), or decade, or director.  Perhaps the indecision is due to having not limited  horror titles from my entertainment during the intervening year; I’ve seen so much, it’s hard to come up with a list of something new and interesting.

So I think I’m going to peruse the pages of those early Fangoria issues and see if I can dig up something old in the hope of seeing something new.

The ‘Fest is a social occasion, for better or worse.  Beer is a staple.  But so is unsolicited and colorful commentary.  When you get a large group together, imbibed with a variety of brews, and put on a scary movie, you’ve just created an audience participation event.  Because of the noise and interruptions, the lists have mostly been comprised of titles we have seen many times and know by heart, or of the B grade variety that doesn’t require attentive viewing.  C and D grades are to be expected, as well.  You don’t mind if some jackass is doing his best to imitate the Mystery Science Theater 3000 act and landing nowhere near the mark—or the funny.

This year, however, I do know that I want to see a few classics without the distraction.  I hope to see Carpenter’s “Halloween” on the drive-in screen with a small group, hear Carpenter’s score on Kel’s excellent surround sound, sit beneath the stars, covered in a blanket, hearing the trees rustling nearby, watching the Shape dispatch babysitters.  I also wanted to screen “The Exorcist”; but apparently, this title was recently viewed by the Barretts, owners and operators of the drive-in, so it’s been removed from the wish list.  I want to go back to the titans of the genre for a reminder and appreciation of the horror movie as art form, not simply popcorn fare.  I think it’s time Octoberfest put on a serious face for a short while.

But only a short while.  The really bad ones are so much fun.

  1. “The Masque of Red Death” – Roger Corman (1964).  It was my first time to see this Corman adaptation.  The exquisite detail and rich density of set decoration and costume design, as well the masterful direction by Corman and the peerless, sublimely sibilant performance by Vincent Price, elevates Poe’s most chilling tale to a level of art.
  2. “The Thaw” – Mark A. Lewis (2009).  One of the Raimi-Tapert Ghost House Underground titles.  Having seen “Dance of the Dead”, I was both curious and hopeful for another serviceable independent from the series, so I added to my Netflix instant queue.  This is at once both a global warming cautionary tale and a repudiation of the Culture of Green and the nutjobs it’s spawned.  Glacial melt in northern Canada uncovers a wooly mammoth with insect larvae in its brain, which thaw and impregnate an unlucky group of ecologists and students.  Val Kilmer does his bloated best to bring some gravitas to his limited screen time.  There’s some gross bug spawning on display.  Cosmic-horror irony besets the student with a paralyzing phobia of bugs when a female lays eggs in his junk.  The moral?  Global warming bad, eco-terrorists badder, unearthed extinct swarm of rapidly propagating insects baddest.
  3. “Dance of the Dead” – Gregg Bishop (2008).  This was my introduction to the Raimi-Tapert Ghost House Underground titles.  My friend, Allen Mann, and I (along with my forever photo-editing finacee Cassie) were hanging out and browsing through Netflix titles, looking for something fun to kill time.  “Zombies attack high school prom” fit the bill.  I have little recollection of the film, save for a handful of images and the general impression that I enjoyed it.  It’s a fun, gory movie, filled with unmemorable characters and very little repeat value.
  4. “Seventh Moon” – Eduardo Sanchez (2008).  Ghost House Underground.  Yep, this is one-half of the “Blair Witch Project” directing team.  And yep, you can expect dizzying, nauseating, eye-straining shaky cam.  But also one of the more terrifying flicks I’ve seen this year.  Geographical disorientation, language confusion, confusion of seeing clearly, and half-glimpsed nightmare creatures make for one anxiety-inducing movie.  Highly recommended.
  5. “Little Shop of Horrors” – Frank Oz (1986).  Another Netflix time-killer.  My ex-step-father took me to see this movie in 1986, one of the few times both he and I had been to the movies by ourselves (the only other one I can remember is “The Gate”, about two years later—one of the two movies I walked out of as a kid.  The other was “Child’s Play”; I left and watched “Ernest Saves Christmas” instead).  Is there any other movie out there boasting an onscreen encounter between a sadist Steve Martin and a masochist Billy Murray . . . in a dentists office!  I think not.  “Candy bar!”
  6. “Dreamaniac”  – David DeCoteau (1986).  Netflix Instant Streaming has given us all a second chance to go back and watch those terrible VHS classics, now off the market, that we passed on countless times while they were readily available, either because of their awful box art . . . or the distribution company (as in this case, Wizard Video) was responsible for putting out unwatchable dreck in the preceding years.  But now, nostalgia has softened our memories, and we get just a little bit excited because we recognize the box art of awful horror titles we haven’t seen in nearly two decades, and man, it really takes you back!  A part of us wants to revisit the times where, as a kid, we perused the shelves of the independent movie store, the excitement of the weekend sleepover with friends was upon us, the sun was going down and we were ecstatic about a very long night watching as many horror movies we could before we crashed among empty boxes of Domino’s Pizza.  So now, as an adult, we quickly add the movie to our Netflix queue, half-anticipating a nostalgia trip, hopeful we can feel like that kid again.  “Dreamaniac” was one of those titles I passed over, and for good reason.  It seemed I had at least a modicum of discerning taste.  This was one of the first movies shot and released on video (perhaps straight to video; I would imagine a 35mm blowup would look like shit), and it unfolds like one long improvisation by the local community theater.  Obviously, every single one of the cast members was taken straight off porn sets to appear in this film.  There isn’t a single straight male playing any of the supposed heteros to be found.  As for a plot, there isn’t any.  “Heavy metal” loser (yet who wears a Def Leppard shirt and has a poster of David Lee Roth on his door) summons a succubus for unknown reasons, which goes about dispatching party guests . . . . Wow, I’ve spent far too long writing about this movie.  Moving on . . .
  7. “Terror in the Aisles” – Andrew J. Kuehn (1984). Unavailable on DVD since the VHS went off the market God knows how long ago, this stalwart of a horror documentary is now available on Blu-Ray, but only as an extra feature on the new “Halloween II” BR disc.  When I was seventeen, I wrote an article titled “Horror’s Best 50”, which was available on an old .hmtl website I built and maintained in 1997-98.  In the opening paragraphs, I waxed ecstatic about this particular title.  I include an excerpt from the article here out of just a wee bit of narcissism (even though I cringe at the tone of juvenilia I hear now as an adult) but also to illustrate how pivotal  “Terror in Isles” was in my development as a lifelong horror movie fan: . . . Nevertheless, “Terror in the Isles,” narrated by every avid horror movie buff’s favorite hero Donald Pleasance, otherwise known as Dr. Sam Loomis in “Halloween” and its four true sequels (the third movie was a joke to me*), really began to sway my interest.  “Terror in the Isles” was my first preview to extreme horror, showing me my first glimpses of “The Shining”, “The Eyes of Laura Mars”, “When A Stranger Calls”, “Jaws”, “Scanners”, John Carpenter’s “The Thing”, “An American Werewolf in London”, “Halloween”, and others.  It was a new kind of visceral experience for me, being five years old or so.  I still had shutterflashes of memory at the time, terrifying ones, of “Ghost Story” and “Poltergeist”, and with “Terror in the Isles” I recognized that these were a unique kind of movies all to themselves . . . and that people loved to be scared.  It was funny, because I knew that I had loved it all the while I was crying or hiding my face during those movies (but during “Scarface” I had begun to pry my mom’s fingers from my face‑‑during that bathroom/chainsaw scene particularly).   Eventually, and soon thereafter, I had seen most of those movies.  HBO wasn’t even a teenager yet; hadn’t even hit puberty‑‑I saw most of those “true” horror movies on the Home Box Office network, those from the [neo-] Golden Age of the late ’70s and early, early ’80s. Back when Tom Savini supplied the gore, rich textured gore, and cartoon‑like CGI was a notion smaller than a molecule, existing only in crate‑sized CPUs used for purposes other than cinema.  And it was story before FX; it was story that mattered‑‑structure, characters, suspense, suggestion.
    * My opinion of “Halloween III” has radically changed over the years.
  8. “The Nesting” – Armand Weston (1981).  I remember the box art for this VHS, too.  Silhouetted woman sitting spraddle legged, holding a sickle that extended disproportionately large beneath her; a moodily lit house in the background.  The heroine of the movie uses this sickle once, in self-defense–it’s in-hand for no more than 30 seconds of screen time.  Ah, the gimmicky charm of misleading poster art!  Anyway, this strange and disjoined take on the haunted house story employs a female lead who has simply the worst, IBS-symptomatic rictus of terror I’ve seen.  Fear, for this woman, manifests itself in a series of expressions more appropriate for the bathroom after a few spicy enchiladas.  She’s an agoraphobic writer who is drawn to a house previously featured in one of her novels, but one of which she has never actually visited before.  Turns out she is the daughter of one of the murdered whores of the brothel, which operated out of the house.  She was secreted away after the massacre but retained some kind of vestigial psychic link.  Hooker spirits abound with vengeance on the mind.  At least this haunted house entry addresses the logic hole bedeviling others in the subgenre, namely Why Don’t They Just Move.  Thing is, our heroine wants to, but she can’t–because she’s agoraphobic!  Ain’t that just clever?  The guilty parties eventually receive their comeuppance, and the movie ends in a jumble of nonsense.
  9. “Phantoms” – Joe Chappelle (1998). So this train-wreck of squandered potential hit the theaters on January 23rd.  I was eighteen years old.  I had read all about the wonderful makeup effects the movie boasted in issues of Fangoria, and before I rip this movie a new one, let me say they indeed are wonderful.  And it’s not just the special makeup effects the movie has going for it; the emptied-out, dread-inducing atmosphere cultivated during the setup is also noteworthy.  But tragic errors in casting (Ben Affleck as an unbelievable Sheriff and Rose McGowan, who, while hot off the success of “Scream”, serves absolutely no purpose here but to stand around and look afraid) and a stylistically inconsistent and unsure director sabotage any promise of making good on, well, what’s actually good about the movie.  There are some very memorable moments that justify the time you’d invest, disturbing and terrifying imagery that evoke Lovecraft and Carpenter.  But even these are undermined (intentionally, it seems, by a cast that appears to realize their dialing in a stinker) by the ill-timed hyuck-hyuck  goofiness offered up by Affleck and Liev Schrieber.  Peter O’Toole, however, is stellar in every scene.
  10. “Killer Party” – William Fruet (1986).  Allen Mann contributed this delightfully 80s title that somehow eluded me as a kid.  Now, I don’t have the words to describe how cheesy and ironically awesome the two false opening scenes truly are.  Words limit such profound, fundamentally life-altering experiences.  Suffice to say that this title earns my choice for the best contribution for this year’s Octoberfest, by no other merits than it provided me with the most fun watching it.  Haunted dormitory as setting for April Fool’s party?  Why, yes, thank you.  Killer soundtrack featuring the worst drum machine beat and a monotone trio of girls really dialing it in?  Mucho gracias!  Interesting bit of trivia culled from IMdB: apparently, 90% of this movie was shot in 1978, yet it was completed in 1984.  I don’t know if this is true, so I’ll have to do some digging in back issues of Fangoria to confirm.  Still, fascinating.  “April, why did you have to PLAY.  THE.  FOOL?”
  11. “The Thing” – John Carpenter (1982).  I can’t possibly truncate everything I would want to write about this movie in the self-imposed limitations of this blog.  Suffice to say, it’s one of my top three favorite movies, of any genre.
  12. “The Thing” – Matthijs van Heijninjin Jr. (2011).  How the hell do you pronounce the director’s name?  Look, Carpenter’s 1982 remake is perhaps my favorite horror movie; a perfect horror movie, if you ask me.  It was hard to go into this movie objectively without the tremendous amount of admitted bias I have for the 1982 film.  I refused to watch the trailers or read anything about it for fear of spoilers.  I wanted as cold a viewing as possible.  My fiancee and I watched Carpenter’s version on Blu-Ray that same evening and went to sit in the theater shortly afterward.  I wasn’t disappointed.  It’s a good movie, even on its own terms.  It has it’s strengths and weaknesses, the latter I would point to GCI comprising nearly 80% of the creature effects, which, I read later, much to my chagrin, had been shot practical.  It’s not the slow-boil of Carpenter’s vision; according to the screenwriter, much of the movie-by-committee mentality present in these cash-in remakes opted for instant gratification over things like character development.  But it still works.  It’s still a good movie.  I highly recommend people go out and buy their ticket to see it.  And I always have my 1982 “The Thing” Blu-Ray.
  13. “Just Before Dawn” – Jeff Lieberman (1981).  There’s something troubling about seeing actors who look ancient today when they were just wrinkle-free youths.  Considering that this movie must have been shoot when I was perhaps only a year old, I know that I will look just as ancient after the same passage of time between this movie’s release and today. And that short turn of the wheel has seemed to me to be very short.  There have been quite a few “Holy shit, I’m 32!” moments this past year.  It seems the movies you loved as a child slowly become these bittersweet reminders of your mortality once you reach your 30s.  Anyway, so this movie is equal parts “Deliverance” and “The Hills Have Eyes”, sans male-on-male rape and nuclear mutation.  Up in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, it’s just good ol-fashioned inbreeding at work here.  A group of twenty-somethings go camping on a plot of land owned by the male (false) lead, run afoul of what seems at first only one inbred, homicidal redneck.  The kid are dispatched in quick succession, and at some point the twist is revealed: there are two inbred, homicidal rednecks.  Turning traditional hero convention on its head, the male lead is rendered impotent by machete slash, and the weak female is empowered by hysteria while being brutalized–and attacks back.  She shoves her hand down the redneck’s throat and lodges it there for a solid minute of screen time while her attacked quivers and convulses and ultimately chokes to death (the other redneck was shot killed shortly before).  The male lead crumbles into an emasculating fit of sobbing while the newly empowered female stares into the woods, mind broken like a twig.  The movie’s shot beautifully on-location and boasts a creepy, minimalist score by Brad Fiedel (“The Terminator”).
  14. “Ghoulies” – Luca Bercovici (1985).  Producer Charles Band is something of a national treasure, a contemporary Roger Corman, with the exception of his notoriety being a product of more inelegant origin.  Also, his production company never produced cinematic god-figures the likes of Cameron, Coppola, and Scorcese.  Ok so I guess he’s nothing like Corman . . . unless you count the truckloads of cheaply made horror films produced by either man.  This is a little 80s gem, whose memorable box art (green gremlin emerging from a toilet bowl) and superior sequel earned its place in this year’s Octoberfest Netflix queue, concerns a prodigal son of a satanic sect returning to his home of origin, lover in tow, only to be possessed by the spirit of the sect’s former leader.  Seances and dispatched party guests are on the menu, as well as one creepy lifesize clown doll (who the hell would own one of these things?).  Two extremely attractive beauties are quickly added to the body count, much to the chagrin of this blogger.  Also, Jack Nance of “Eraserhead” and “Twin Peaks” fame cameos.
  15. “Troll Hunter”– Andre Ovredal (2010).  This one’s a part of the quick and economical found-footage subgenre which skyrocketed to the  consciousness of frugal and outright broke filmmakers everywhere in 1999 with “The Blair Witch Project”.  Executed wonderfully in this story of a group of documentary filmmakers (aren’t they all: form mirroring content, or so the rationale goes) stumbling upon an agent of the Norwegian government paid to hunt very real and enormous trolls who stray from their territories.  Wonderful deadpan from the hunter.  Much of the charm of this movie lies in the straight-faced approach to such an absurd and often comical subject of the existence of trolls, forgoing any tongue-in-cheek or audience winking.  Highly recommended.
  16. “An American Werewolf in London” – John Landis (1981).  Rick Baker and Rob Bottin (“The Howling”) would both revolutionalize transformative makeup effects in lycanthropy this year.  What the moviegoing public had seen up until this point were variations on the Lon Cheney Jr’ Wolfman makeup, which was presented in soft dissolves between built-up layers of makeup; Cheney Jr. had to remain stationary for hours while each new patch of fur was glued on.  Now audiences were seeing whole body transformations before their eyes.  Compressed air elongated prosthetic appliances built onto the face; whole bone structures changed in a single, unbroken take.  There are too many advances in makeup to list in this short little blurb.  This stuff is pretty commonplace now . . . Scratch that.  That’s not exactly true.  Makeup effects are not that common anymore (I cite the above mentioned 2011 “The Thing”, which eschewed the practical for a glut of CGI).  Perhaps I should say Baker and Bottin’s techniques are old hat now, having been reproduced and copied ad naseumsince they broke ground in this new makeup frontier in the early 80s.  However, they stand the test of time.  I won’t go into a rant about the merits of the tangibility of makeup effects vs. the cartoon falsity of CGI, but I don’t believe you can argue the power of the makeup in these films even in 2011.   Viewed on the Barrett Drive-In, the perfect exhibition for a film like this one.
  17. “Village of the Damned” – John Carpenter (1995).  Carpenter shot this movie right before he shot “In the Mouth of Madnesss”, but “Damned” was released in theaters after “Madness”.  I forget the reasons why (I no longer have those issues ofFangoria).  Based on John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos, this is a remake of the 1960 film by the same name.  This was also Christopher Reeves last acting role before he was paralyzed in a horse riding accident.
  18. “Demonic Toys 2” – William Butler (2010).  At some point last year, my friend, Allen Mann, and I watched the Charles Band Full Moon productions “Demonic Toys” and “Dollman vs. Demonic Toys”, and seeing a 3-title Charles Band DVD, with the “Demonic” sequel, on sale for $3, I snatched up the chance to revisit a cheesy and fun franchise.  Baby Oopsie Daisey, the possessed, homicidal baby doll has been featured in four Full Moon titles, that I know of, and has been voiced by someone different in each subsequent film.  My favorite remains the voice characterization from the original.  In this latest installment, which is also part sequel to another Full Moon title, “Hideous”, Baby Oopsie Daisey is well nigh unintelligable, but that’s no big problem–the whole of the movie is unintelligible.  It perhaps rates the worst of any of the Octoberfest titles I’ve ever watched; it doesn’t even qualify for the “so bad, it’s good” category.  It’s just bad.  Tedious viewing.
  19. “The Legend of Boggy Creek” – Charles B. Pierce (1972).  References to this movie were quite common in the early 80s; and if my then-step-father wasn’t bringing it up while we were either driving, camping, or hunting in the woods, then I was seeing the box-art on the shelves at movie rental stores.  The title, evocative and ominous, has stuck around since then, rattling in my brain and popping up randomly in my thoughts or in conversation.  But If I ever actually watched this movie, I have long since forgotten anything about it.  My friend Allen is an enthusiast for all things Sasquatch, and had at some point purchased the DVD of this now off-the-market title.  This one was his Octoberfest contribution.  The director recently passed away, but as recent as 2004, he was engaged in some capacity in a remake (now long fizzled); the uncle of my ex was friends with Mr. Pierce, and wanted to put me in contact with him to assist in the production.  Nothing ever came of this.  “Boggy Creek” is a strange movie; it’s marketed as a creature feature but is in reality a charming documentary of the way of life of southern Arkansas as it existed in the 1940s (and exists today, in a town where time seems to have stood still).  Sure, it’s about Bigfoot, but the majority of the film is comprised of little Disneyesque, narrated interludes, accompanied by whimsical flute music.  There’s also the occasional folk tune.  Some of the townsfolk play themselves, and, boy, every flavor and patois of the southern accent is captured on film.  It’s interesting to note the wide divergence of the director’s style between 1972 and on the 1985 sequel, where Pierce eschews all of the surprising elegance of the pastoral imagery of the original for the crass, formulaic inelegance of the B-movie creature feature trappings.
  20. “Monster Squad” – Fred Dekker (1987).  What to say about this unique gem of a movie?  Dekker, the guy responsible for “Night of the Creeps” (“It’s Miller Time!”), takes all of the Universal monsters and hurls them into the 80s, where they are pitted against the titular, monster-loving club of prepubescents who become aware of their existence.  And the monsters themselves were reimagined by creature-maker legend Stan Winston!  This title was screened at the Barrett Drive-In, and it was the first I’ve seen it since I myself was a prepubescent.  This movie, along with “Creeps”, was off the market for nearly two decades, for reasons that I don’t understand.  Dekker, an obvious talent, apparently took the next decade off from directing; he’s virtually off the radar during the 90s.  Thankfully, both films were restored and rereleased on DVD and Blu-Ray a few years ago.  And now the world can be reminded again that “Wolfman’s got nards!”
  21. “Exorcismus” – Manuel Carballo (2010).  I don’t know much about this movie.  I caught the trailer one night and it was edited well enough to elicit my interest.  Found it on Netflix.  I generally don’t like movies about exorcism because they’re generally a big bore, highly derivative.  There’s nothing new or interesting to be added to the story about a Catholic priest and a possessed girl.  The Catholic priest is a convention that should be retired altogether, in my opinion.  Let’s see some other denominations handle demonic possession (I quite enjoyed “The Last Exorcism” because they did).  But hey, at least there was a twist.  The priest is actually coercing the possession to document proof of the devil’s existence–at the expense of a whole family.  Doug “Pinhead” Bradley cameos as a priest; ironic, since his character also went by another name in Clive Barker’s Cenobite universe–the Priest of Hell.
  22. “Critters” – Stephen Herek (1986).  Few kids of the 80s made it through the decade without seeing this one.  The sequel, moreso than this one, is must-see each Halloween; we even know all of the lyrics to the Hungry Heifer theme song (the HH is a redneck burger joint that gets infested by Crites).  But enough about the sequel.  Apparently this was New Line’s answer to “Gremlins”.  I have to say, I have a soft heart for these carnivorous, needle sprouting furballs.  I can’t recall if I saw it in theaters, but I do remember looking at the poster outside of the Cinema I-82 in Greenville.  It soon appeared on VHS and on network TV and quickly became a childhood favorite.  The creature effects are courtesy of the Chiodo Brothers, who would soon unleash “Killers Klowns from Outer Space” on an unsuspecting world.  Puppets will always be far superior to CGI.  I ask, Who do you prefer, Empire-Yoda or Clones-Yoda?  This is one of those rare titles that will bring a smile to my face if mentioned, especially Part 2.  They’re little portable memories of childhood, souvenirs, and best when watched with those who grew up loving them too.
  23. “The Ring”– Gore Verbinski (2002).  Wow.  2002?  Really?  Doesn’t seem that long ago I sat in a theater with my mom, watching this one for the first time; she was scared to the point of lifting her feet off the floor and into her chair for fear of something grabbing her ankles.  I read an article in a 1998 issue of Fangoria magazine about the recent J-horror phenomenon, and already “Ringu” was garnering international fanfare.  I searched out some bootlegs and eventually popped in a VHS copy sometime a few  years later.  There are very few movies that chill me and leave me nerveless after the first viewing.  “Ringu” was one of those; one of the made-for-TV “Juon” titles was another.  Of course, it’s the strangeness of a foreign cultural palatte on display; the language and familiar road markers are no longer present.  Traditional formula is no longer present.  In a sense, you’re no longer in control; you can’t effectively anticipate the scares and are at the mercy of something unknown.  The American remake was very good.  And I don’t mind looking at Naomi Watts for 90 minutes.  Unfortunately, it spawned the American J-horror remake phenomenon, which, like all trends, degenerates into self-parody, having mined the source until nothing interesting remained, distilled the elements until what remained were powder-white kids with black eyes appearing in cupboards and water-drenched, black-haired demon girls lingering at the far end of hallways or crawling on the ceiling.  But when you go back to the keystone titles, the first installment in a tireless franchise, you rediscover the subgenre’s power to scare, experience the language in its elemental form.  And “The Ring” was a great cap to another year of Octoberfest!

Well, as you can see below, I didn’t stick to my original list for this year’s Octoberfest.  The main reason was because of very busy work schedule this month.  My finacee and I also spent the first week of October in the Pacific Northwest.  Kelly Barrett himself was gone for the second week, so opportunities to view some of the titles at his drive-in (which were selected for this reason) were limited.  Then there was the convenience of Netflix streaming over the mailers–the majority of the titles below are available only on DVD.  But on the whole, I think Octoberfest 2011 was a success.

Now, let’s see.  That’s 23 movies viewed this month.  And the average length of a movie, especially a horror movie, is 90 minutes.  Let’s do the math.  90 x 23 = 1070 minutes.  Divide that by 60, and I spent 34.5 hours this month in front of a TV, theater screen, or drive-in screen.  That’s a solid day and 10 and a half additional hours.  Guess I should get busy being productive . . .

IN QUEUE:

Halloween – John Carpenter (1978)
Prince of Darkness – John Carpenter (1987)
Insidious – James Wan (2011)
Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages – Benjamin  Christensen (1922)
The Haunting – Robert Wise (1963)
Straight-Jacket – William Castle (1964).  Written by Robert Bloch
The Sentinel – William Winner (1977)
The Other – Robert Mulligan (1972)
Night of the Living Dead – George A. Romero (1968)
Slither – James Gunn (2006)
Rosemary’s Baby – Roman Polanski