Halloween is over (sad!), and I have successfully completed my 31 Days of Horror Challenge with a couple bonus viewings to boot. I mostly stuck to movies available on Netflix streaming, which limited my options pretty significantly. There were a bunch of films I wanted to watch but weren’t available to stream so I skipped them (for example: The Evil Dead, the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween). But I definitely managed to get some favorites in along with a lot of first time viewings!
Here is the full list of horror movies that I watched…
October 1: The Monster Squad (1987). Very cute kids’ movie with a Goonies vibe.
October 2/3: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010). So, so funny. Highly recommend. Plus, Alan Tudyk!!
October 4: Creep (2014) and The Houses October Built (2014). The Houses October Built had some legitimately disturbing imagery, which I always appreciate.
October 5: Zombeavers (2014)…yes, it’s about zombie beavers, and it’s freaking hilarious. Also watched Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995).(Halloween introduced “Paul Stephen Rudd”…who knew?!) Both featured a character jumping out a second story window to escape killers.
October 6: Dead Silence (2007). From the Saw team, featuring my favorite New Kid, Donnie Wahlberg, along with Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) from True Blood.
October 7: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994). Classic Craven meta.
October 8: Honeymoon (2014). Starring Rose Leslie, who played Ygritte on Game of Thrones.
October 9: Shocker (1989). Starring Mitch Pileggi (Skinner from The X-Files/Grandpa Winchester from Supernatural). Also, Peter Berg as a college football player. A+ for special effects that must have been amazing at the time.
October 10: Silence of the Lambs (1991). Still perfect.
October 11: Housebound (2014). Very enjoyable flick from New Zealand.
October 12: Scream (1996). I believe this was the first horror movie I ever saw in the theater, when I was a freshman in college, and it was the one that really sparked my interest in horror films.
October 13: Devil’s Pass (2013). Fairly standard found footage flick set around a real life event (the Dyatlov Pass incident).
October 14: Pernicious (2014). Fairly entertaining B-movie set in Thailand.
October 15: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008). LOVE me some horror musicals! I have the soundtrack and have listened to it approximately 5,000 times.
October 16: Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys (2014). Starring Shannen Doherty and Jason Brooks (Peter Blake from Days of Our Lives!). Animal Planet’s first-ever horror movie! If I never hear the word “lampreys” uttered again, it will be too soon.
October 17: Torment (2013). Starring Katharine Isabelle (Margot Verger on Hannibal), so that’s reason enough to watch.
October 18: The Lazarus Effect (2015). Great cast (Olivia Wilde, Evan Peters, Donald Glover, Mark Duplass, Sarah Bolger, Ray Wise), not-so-great movie.
October 19: The Omen (1976). Directed by Richard Donner, who also directed my all-time favorite movie: The Goonies.
October 20: Nightbreed (1990). I seriously couldn’t even tell you what this one was about, but the special effects must have been pretty amazing at the time.
October 21: Eli Roth’s The Stranger (2014). Probably one of the least interesting of the movies I watched.
October 22: Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). Starring Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, and James Remar (Harry from Dexter!)
October 23: Trick ‘r Treat (2007). One of my all-time Halloween favorites!!
October 24: Haunter (2013). Nothing too special about this one, and I’m sorry to say that Abigail Breslin may have peaked acting-wise in Little Miss Sunshine.
October 25: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Duh!
October 26: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985). The hairspray and mullet maintenance budget on this film must have been over the top.
October 27: We Are What We Are (2013). Pretty disturbing cannibal family drama.
October 28: Scream 2 (1997). This one reminds me of college because they filmed it in Atlanta (Agnes Scott College stood in as Windsor College) while I was attending Emory University, and some of my fellow students were extras. A pretty solid sequel.
October 29: Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead (2014). Starring Martin Starr of Freaks and Geeks, Party Down, and Silicon Valley. This one was a surprising amount of super gory fun!
October 30: Children of the Corn (1984). If the names Isaac and Malachai don’t make you shudder, I don’t know what will.
October 31: Halloween (2007). BONUS: The Nightmare Before Christmas live concert with Danny Elfman at the Hollywood Bowl! I’m currently in LA with my husband visiting his family and we got tickets to this incredible event—it was the first time they’ve ever done this concert in America. All of the original singers were there to perform the songs live along with the movie, backed by an orchestra. It was absolutely THE most perfect activity to do on my favorite holiday!
Just for fun, I put together some stats on the horror movies I watched over the past month…
Horror Films By Decade:
- 1970s: 1
- 1980s: 4
- 1990s: 8
- 2000s: 4
- 2010s: 15
Additional Stats and Facts:
- Total number of films watched: 32, including one watched twice in one week (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
- Number of films watched for the first time: 22
- Number of sequels or variations thereof: 4
- Number of remakes: 1
- Number of musicals: 2
- Stephen McHattie and child actor Peter DaCunha appeared together in two movies: Torment, Haunter
- Mark Duplass appeared in two of the movies: Creep, The Lazarus Effect
- Wes Craven (RIP) directed four of the movies: Shocker, New Nightmare, Scream, Scream 2
- David Warner appeared in two of the movies: The Omen and Scream 2
- Child actor Robby Kiger appeared in the first and the second to last movies I watched: The Monster Squad and Children of the Corn
- Courtney Gains appeared in the last two movies I watched: Children of the Corn (as creepy Malachai) and the Halloween remake
- Movies watched with my husband: 3 (Silence of the Lambs, Trick ‘r Treat, The Nightmare Before Christmas)
- Movies watched while traveling: 8
So that’s it! I had a lot of fun watching these movies. Have you ever done a 31 Days of Horror Challenge? If not, do you think you’ll give it a shot next year? I will most likely do it again. 😀
