As I love horror movies & Halloween: every October (aka Halloween Month) I “watch” a slew of horror movies.
Autumn is my favorite season and my favorite time of year. Halloween is my favorite holiday. Halloween month is my favorite month. You get it, yeah?
Watching a bunch of spoopy movies this time of year has been a tradition for most of my life. Recording these lists on spreadsheets started many years ago with a good friend who has since passed out of my life, but I continue the practice. I now have many years of spreadsheets collecting all the horror movies I watched each year. One year was just 100% Netflix and another year I watched almost exclusively old horror movies. This year hasn’t had a theme, I’ve just sort of watched things.
I don’t actually watch all of them, in a lot of cases these are movies that I’ve already seen and I just turn them on, glancing at them occasionally and listening to them. It’s comforting.
This year I’ve run a lot of movies in a quest for some feeling normalcy.
| 🎃👻🤡☠️ | Date | Title | Year | My Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sep 30 | The Wrath of Becky | 2023 | 7/10 |
| 2 | Oct 1 | Talk to Me | 2023 | 9/10 |
| 3 | Oct 1 | Skinamarink | 2022 | 3/10 |
| 4 | Oct 2 | Insidious | 2010 | 8/10 |
| 5 | Oct 2 | Insidious 2 | 2013 | 7/10 |
| 6 | Oct 2 | Smile | 2022 | 9/10 |
| 7 | Oct 2 | The Meg | 2018 | 6/10 |
| 8 | Oct 3 | Chernobyl Diaries | 2012 | 6/10 |
| 9 | Oct 3 | The Descent | 2008 | 8/10 |
| 10 | Oct 3 | Leatherface | 2017 | 7/10 |
| 11 | Oct 4 | Body at Brighton Rock | 2019 | 6/10 |
| 12 | Oct 4 | The Bogeyman | 2023 | 9/10 |
| 13 | Oct 5 | Insidious: Chapter 3 | 2015 | 7/10 |
| 14 | Oct 5 | Insidious: The Last Key | 2018 | 6/10 |
| 15 | Oct 6 | Scream VI | 2022 | 9/10 |
| 16 | Oct 6 | Totally Killer | 2023 | 8/10 |
| 17 | Oct 6 | The Empty Man | 2020 | 7/10 |
| 18 | Oct 7 | No One Gets Out Alive | 2021 | 8/10 |
| 19 | Oct 7 | The Meg 2: The Trench | 2023 | 6/10 |
| 20 | Oct 8 | Fresh | 2022 | 7/10 |
| 21 | Oct 8 | X | 2022 | 9/10 |
| 22 | Oct 9 | Pearl | 2022 | 9/10 |
| 23 | Oct 9 | Infinity Pool | 2023 | 6/10 |
| 24 | Oct 10 | Scream (5 - 2022) | 2022 | 8/10 |
| 25 | Oct 10 | Halloween Ends | 2022 | 6/10 |
| 26 | Oct 10 | The Gate | 1987 | 6/10 |
| 27 | Oct 11 | Scream 4 | 2011 | 6/10 |
| 28 | Oct 12 | Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark | 2019 | 8/10 |
| 29 | Oct 13 | Friday the 13th | 1980 | 10/10 |
| 30 | Oct 13 | Friday the 13th Part 2 | 1981 | 7/10 |
| 31 | Oct 13 | Friday the 13th Part 3 | 1982 | 6/10 |
| 32 | Oct 13 | Friday the 13th Part 4 The Final Chapter | 1984 | 7/10 |
| 33 | Oct 13 | Friday the 13th Part 5 A New Beginning | 1985 | 5/10 |
| 34 | Oct 14 | Werewolves Within | 2021 | 8/10 |
| 35 | Oct 14 | Friday the 13th Part 6 Jason Lives | 1986 | 5/10 |
| 35 | Oct 14 | Haunted Mansion | 2023 | 7/10 |
| 36 | Oct 15 | Slotherhouse | 2023 | 4/10 |
| 37 | Oct 15 | Exists | 2014 | 7/10 |
| 38 | Oct 16 | Friday the 13th Part 7 The New Blood | 1988 | 5/10 |
| 39 | Oct 16 | Trick r’ Treat | 2007 | 8/10 |
| 40 | Oct 17 | Friday the 13th Part 8 Jason Takes Manhattan | 1989 | 5/10 |
| 41 | Oct 17 | The Babadook | 2014 | 10/10 |
| 42 | Oct 17 | The Offering | 2022 | 5/10 |
| 43 | Oct 18 | Scream 3 | 2000 | 5/10 |
| 44 | Oct 18 | Scream 2 | 1997 | 8/10 |
| 45 | Oct 19 | Scream | 1996 | 10/10 |
| 46 | Oct 19 | Monster House | 2006 | 8/10 |
| 47 | Oct 20 | Insidious (5) The Red Door | 2023 | 7/10 |
| 48 | Oct 20 | Terrifier | 2016 | 5/10 |
| 49 | Oct 21 | Oracle | 2023 | 8/10 |
| 50 | Oct 21 | Lights Out | 2016 | 7/10 |
| 51 | Oct 22 | Critters | 1986 | 6/10 |
| 52 | Oct 22 | Terrifier 2 | 2022 | 3/10 |
| 53 | Oct 23 | Species | 1995 | 5/10 |
| 54 | Oct 23 | ParaNorman | 2012 | 9/10 |
| 55 | Oct 23 | Cobwebs | 2023 | 6/10 |
| 56 | Oct 24 | Drag Me to Hell | 2009 | 6/10 |
| 57 | Oct 24 | Disco Inferno (Short) | 2023 | 6/10 |
| 58 | Oct 25 | The Black Phone | 2021 | 8/10 |
| 59 | Oct 25 | Pyewacket | 2017 | 7/10 |
| 60 | Oct 26 | Curse of Crom: The Legend of Halloween | 2022 | 8/10 |
| 61 | Oct 26 | Night of the Living Dead | 1968 | 8/10 |
| 62 | Oct 27 | Tales of Halloween | 2015 | 4/10 |
| 63 | Oct 27 | Five Nights at Freddy’s | 2023 | 7/10 |
| 64 | Oct 27 | Hotel Transylvania | 2012 | 7/10 |
| 65 | Oct 27 | The Nun | 2018 | 6/10 |
| 66 | Oct 27 | The Nun II | 2023 | 6/10 |
| 67 | Oct 29 | Hocus Pocus | 1993 | 8/10 |
| 68 | Oct 29 | Hocus Pocus 2 | 2022 | 7/10 |
| 69 | Oct 29 | Barbarian | 2022 | 9/10 |
| 70 | Oct 29 | Mama | 2013 | 8/10 |
| 71 | Oct 30 | Deliver Us from Evil | 2014 | 7/10 |
| 72 | Oct 30 | The Old Ways | 2020 | 8/10 |
| 73 | Oct 31 | Midsommar | 2019 | 10/10 |
| 74 | Oct 31 | Hereditary | 2019 | 10/10 |
A Few Notes:
Score Relativity
How do these scores relate to each other? How are movies like The Curse of Crom, Night of the Living Dead, and Trick r’ Treat all rated 8/10? Because these scores are all arbitrary based on how much I like the the movie and not based on some complex scoring system. I, more or less, just rate them based on how much I like them or what they are. Animated and family movies are, of course, not really comparable to Terrifier, for instance.
Scream Franchise in Reverse?
You may notice that I’ve watched the Scream movies in reverse.
You may wonder: why the hell would you do that?
That’s a fantastic question and the answer is simply that I watched the most recent movie before deciding that I would watch the entire franchise again so I figured: why not do it in reverse?
It’s actually been really interesting to experience them in reverse order, it hearing the call backs and then seeing them later has been kind of fun in a way I didn’t expect.
Scream remains my favorite horror franchise.
Original Friday the 13th
I made an effort to get through the original Paramount run of Friday the 13th Movies on Friday the 13 since it was the first Friday the 13th in October since 2006. I only managed to run through 5 and didn’t really watch much of those as it was a rather busy Friday for me.
Since then I have “watched” 6 through 8 and they are just so terrible. 😂
Still a super fun franchise, though.
The first 2 remain the best.
Like Scream (and a variety of other franchises)
X & Pearl (and Infinity Pool)
I really enjoyed X and Pearl. Ti West is an excellent horror auteur. Inn Keepers remains pretty high on my list of favorite horrors.
I also watched Infinity Pool, which had more of a David Lynch vibe than I was expecting, but has officially given me my fill of Mia Goth. I don’t need to see Mia Goth in any more movies for a while.
Terrifier and Terrifier 2
They’re terrible. The awful. I regret re-watching the first and the second was just dumb. Don’t even bother.
I would watch the original short, though, because I’ve not seen it and figure I might as well.
The Insidious Franchise
These movies have grown on me a bit over the years. While I firmly think the first two are the best (and that they’re not great though), the other movies are still a fair bit of fun and I found myself enjoying the entire series much more than I’d expected.
Perfect 10s
There are some excellent movies that I really love on this list. I accept that horror movies will inevitably have plot holes, issues, illogical bits, but I might still rate them a 10. Scream, The Babadook, the original Friday the 13th - these are all just “perfect” horror movies to me.
Ari Aster
I capped the month with Midsommar and Hereditary. These movies stand alone as such uniquely twisted bits of artistic film making. They are visceral, dark, and horrifying. Both of these movies are so uniquely structured, gorgeously shot, extravagantly brutal.
I have been waiting for Ari’s follow-up to his one-two punch in 2018 and 2019.
His work is incredible!
This year we got Beau is Afraid; a 3 hour horror comedy about an anxious man’s experience following the death of his mother. Its plot on IMDb contains the word Kafkaesque. I’m excited and nervous to see it.
Other Thoughts?
I have many, and perhaps when I come back to finish this post I’ll share them- or not. I’ve run over 70 movies and that’s a lot of thoughts to share.
I tend to jot down my thoughts on each viewing as well, and perhaps I’ll add them to this post as well.
Or maybe not
¯\_(ツ)_/¯