~*~ SPOOKY MOVIE MONTH 2023 ~*~

[Xenomrph]

I'm a day late, but OH WELL.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, folks - it's when we watch horror movies all throughout October! I've done this every October for years, and I look forward to it every year.

There's also the Spooky Movie Month Challenge, where you watch 31 spooky movies in 31 days.

What counts as a spooky movie?
 - horror, obviously
 - horror-comedy (think 'Shaun of the Dead')
 - seasonally appropriate even if it's not necessarily scary (think 'Casper', 'The Nightmare Before Christmas')
 - thriller movies (think 'Silence of the Lambs', 'Frailty', 'Se7en')
 - documentaries about horror/Halloween

Have fun with it! It doesn't matter if you've seen the movie before or if you're not sure if the movie "counts", if it's spooky then it's fair game. Make up challenges for yourself for a month-long "theme" (my theme last year was "horror anthology movies"), get creative. And let's talk about it! Share recommendations with each other, post little reviews, encourage others to partake in the season, all that good stuff.

My "theme" this month is "watch DVDs I own but haven't gotten around to watching yet". You know, to justify having bought them (paging @Local Trouble ). I have a couple off-theme movies I plan to watch this month, and almost all of the movies will be movies I've seen before, the majority are just movies I've bought (or upgraded to a better format) but haven't watched yet.

Happy Halloween!

Saw X (2023)

If you would have told me that the 10th entry in a 20-year-old horror franchise would be the best-made one in the series, I would have never believed it. But somehow, they pulled it off. I'm not sure that it's as tightly-written as the original movie, and I think it squanders its use of "Hello Zepp" a little bit, but goddamn if it doesn't give Jigsaw a lot of character and pathos and showcases how he's different from his successors/accomplices across the other movies in the series. Tobin Bell acts his ass off in this movie and it's extremely clear that he didn't phone it in and he genuinely gave a shit, and it shows. He could have just cashed a paycheck, and he absolutely does not.

Train to Busan (2016)

Great little zombie movie, having it take place on a train is a novel concept that hearkens back to the plane outbreak scene in World War Z, but stretched out for a feature length movie (and it actually successfully pulls it off without running the concept into the ground). Lots of creative zombie action, plenty of interesting characters that go just enough past "bare archetypes" to get you to care about them and be concerned for their survival. Some of the CGI is a little iffy sometimes (although an out-of-control freight train on fire is one hell of a mental image), and I think it leans into overwrought melodrama a little too heavily at the end, but all around it's one of the better zombie flicks I've seen.




1. Saw X (2023)
2. Train to Busan (2016)

[Nightmare Asylum]

I always end up going all out with a lot of horror viewings every October, and then capping the month off with a double feature of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982) and Trick 'r Treat (2007) on Halloween night itself. I've done two movies each day so far for the first two days of the month:

October 1:
The Old Dark House (1932) [rewatch]
Suspiria (1977) [rewatch]

October 2:
The Howling (1981) [first viewing]
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) [first viewing]

With the exception of my Halloween night double feature, I never really plan the specifics of my October viewings (though I do always try to do a ton of the Universal Monsters movies each year), I just kind of like to see where things take me and strike a balance between movies I've seen and love, and movies I've missed and want to see for the first time.

[Local Trouble]

My "theme" this month is "watch DVDs I own but haven't gotten around to watching yet". You know, to justify having bought them (paging @Local Trouble ).

Be sure to specify when they're the steelbook edition.

[Xenomrph]

My "theme" this month is "watch DVDs I own but haven't gotten around to watching yet". You know, to justify having bought them (paging @Local Trouble ).

Be sure to specify when they're the steelbook edition.

Train to Busan so far, although The Mist (likely tonight's movie) is a 4K steelbook too.

[Xenomrph]

Tonight's spooky movie: The Mist (2007)

Pretty great movie about how quickly civil society falls apart when weird shit starts happening. I didn't realize the movie was from '07, and some of the CGI kind of shows its age. A lot of the mist shots look good and I can't tell if they're CGI, but there's some that stand out as not-great CGI (when the mist first rolls in, or when the crew are driving down a road in the land cruiser at the end of the movie). Well-rounded cast with diverse personalities that shine as stuff starts going to shit, although it's pretty funny how many of the cast members went on to do the (initially) Darabont-helmed The Walking Dead show. That ending, though, jesus christ. One of, if not the, bleakest endings I've ever seen in a movie. And it isn't just that it's bleak, it's that it rubs your nose in it by showing that if the characters had waited 30 more seconds then the problem would have solved itself.



1. Saw X (2023)
2. Train to Busan (2016)
3. The Mist (2007)

[Xenomrph]

Tonight's spooky movie: Pet Sematary (1989)

One of the better Stephen King adaptations in my opinion. I will say that the pacing is a little uneven - it takes a bit of time to get to the spooks, but when it does it goes off the rails hard and fast. As a cat lover (and someone who had to have his cat euthanized in the recent past due to cancer), seeing Church die twice (and once by euthanasia) hit me harder than I thought it would, even though I knew it was coming. The whole ordeal was arguably Judd's fault - he's the one who took Louis to the cursed burial ground in the first place (and this was shortly after he outright said to Louis and his kids that a kid has to learn about death sometime, making him a huge hypocrite for claiming he wants to resurrect Church to spare Ellie the heartbreak of a dead pet), and then he takes it a step further by inceptioning Louis into burying Gage there. RIP Church, you were a good kitty.



1. Saw X (2023)
2. Train to Busan (2016)
3. The Mist (2007)
4. Pet Sematary (1989)

[Nightmare Asylum]

October 3:
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) [rewatch]

October 4:
Doctor X (1932) [first viewing]
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) [first viewing]

[littlesprout]

Hmmm what's a good spooky movie

[Local Trouble]

Hmmm what's a good spooky movie

Do a double feature of The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Martyrs.

[littlesprout]

Hmmm what's a good spooky movie

Do a double feature of The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Martyrs.

I will report back once I watch

[Stitch]

Clearly playing catch-up, but I watch horror all throughout the year, anyway. But two so far tonight:

1. Don't Look Up (2009)
2. Elevator Game

[Xenomrph]

Tonight's spooky movie: Barbarian (2022)

I'm not sure what I just watched, that movie had so many tonal shifts and stuff that came out of nowhere that it feels really hard to pin the movie down. It definitely kept me guessing on what was going to happen next or what crazy thing was going to pop out of nowhere to change things up again. It was a pretty neat little movie and I'm glad I watched it, although it's not one I'm in a rush to re-watch. Definitely glad I went in blind, though; I'm deliberately not including spoilers in this review in case anyone else wants to go in blind, too.



1. Saw X (2023)
2. Train to Busan (2016)
3. The Mist (2007)
4. Pet Sematary (1989)
5. Barbarian (2022)

[ace3g]

[nanison]

I don't plan these things, I just check the tv schedule

This month so far I caught broadcasts of the exorcist, alien and pet sematary.

I think Pet sematary is a pretty weak film and that's mostly because the acting is unconvincing to me. It also didn't lake a lot of sense and the subplot with the women's sister is unnecessary imo. I've watched it 3 times now and I think this opinion is now fixed for good.

I heard great things about the book though.

[Cosmic Incubation]

I watch a lot of horror throughout the year, but it always feels like watching for Halloween season adds like a 5X multiplier effect.

I'm not typically a huge slasher person, but I think playing Dead By Daylight with my friend group lately has had us all in a slasher mood. So I'm going through some of the classic slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm St, etc. I'm revisiting some of my favorites that I have seen, as well as checking out some of the entries I never got around to watching for whatever reason. There's still a few of the Jason and Freddy films I still have never seen.

I don't have a set schedule or list, but so far I've checked out

Scream 1-3

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

I also just got out of a big Saw marathon before seeing Saw X


Would love to follow along with anyone else who's on Letterboxd btw (my profile)