It should come as no surprise for frequent readers of my blog that horror is my favorite genre, no matter its form (books, movies, etc.).  If I could, I would spend every month watching only horror movies until I have seen every movie I could ever want to.  That will never happen, though, but with October holding the scariest holiday of the year – Halloween – what better time to partake in a horror movie challenge?

Three challenges have been tossed my way, and all relate to the same thing: watching a lot of horror movies in the month of October.  I first stumbled upon the idea of watching 31 horror movies in the 31 days of October over at my favorite Goodreads group, the Horror Aficionados.  Zombette, a user at GR, brought up the fact that she likes to watch a horror movie everyday each October, and wondered if anyone wanted to join her.  At first, I turned down the offer, figuring I wouldn’t have enough time.  But, then I asked my twitter followers/friends if they had any requests for movies to be reviewed, and Wolverinefactor replied that I should join in the horror challenge at DVD Talk.  Once there, I found what he was talking about, and I count the thread as my third challenger.  The DVD Talk guys are serious movie watchers, and the main challenge is actually 100 horror movies in 31 days.  With my schedule, that would be impossible, so I decided I would take a look at their 31 in 31 schedule.  Honestly, I didn’t find that list too inspiring (because I have already watched most of the movies on the list, not because they are bad movies), and my brain started working.  After a few days, I have come up with a way to combine these challenges into one Horrorthon that I actually have a (very slim) chance of completing.

Here is my October 2010 Horrorthon Challenge:

-I will watch 31 horror movies in 31 days.
-I have a schedule and an order to follow, but I am allowed to watch more than one movie a day if I need to catch up/want to get ahead.
-I own (or will own) all of the movies in some capacity on my list, so this will help clear some movie backlog.
-I will not write full reviews with pictures like I have been doing, but I will write mini-reviews.  If I watch a movie not on my list, then I will write a full review on that film, and it will not count toward my Horrorthon Challenge.  I have made sure to only select movies that I figured wouldn’t need full reviews.
-All 31 movies count toward my main goal of 169 movies in 365 days.

I will do my best to keep each of the mini-reviews as informative as possible, so that you, the readers of my blog, will still enjoy visiting.  If anyone has any suggestions for the challenge, let me know.  I will try to only update the blog, at most, once a night even if I watch multiple movies in a day because I don’t want to spam any subscribers inboxes.  🙂

Here is the list of movies I am planning on watching (click image for full size view):

If you have any suggestions or questions, or, better yet, want to join in?  Just post a comment and let me know.

Thanks for reading, and happy horrorthon.

Branden Chowen

Branden has been a film fan since he was young, roaming the halls of Blockbuster Video, trying to find the grossest, scariest looking VHS covers to rent and watch alone in the basement. It wasn’t until recently, though, that Branden started seeking out the classics of cinema, and began to develop his true passion for the art form. Branden approaches each film with the unique perspective of having studied the art from the inside, having both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in acting. He has been a film critic since 2010, and has previously written for Inside Pulse Movies, We Love Cult, and Diehard Gamefan. His biggest achievement as a film critic, to date, has been founding Cinefessions and turning it from a personal blog to a true film website, housing hundreds of film and television reviews, and dozens of podcasts.