October Horror Movie Challenge 2023

Cue the music! :Turn down your lights where available:

Spoopy and Creppy Season approaches once more folks!  Yep, I’m going to be delving into the murky depths of the horror genre again, as part of the thing from the old IMDb message boards that just, Won’t, DIE; the October Horror Movie Challenge.  Same procedure as every year; if you want to play along at home, you simply have to watch at least 31 horror movies across the 31 days of October, over than half of which (so 16 or more) must be ones you are seeing for the first time.

Faux Voorhees - Canary faces Friday the 13th A New Beginning

Here's a little addendum to my October Horror Movie Challenge posts; this month I'm trying a little something coined #NewWatchNovember, trying to make all movies, TV etc. I see new to me.  Not going to make it formal or anything, it's purely for fun, and it's helping me be more decisive about what things from the unwatched Blu Ray pile I do next.  Part of this is taking care of a few leftover things from the October Challenge Pile, both clearing out the spreadsheet (yes, I have spreadsheets to organise my movie viewings) and making space on the DVD rack. Well during this sorting out, I realised that I had on the spreadsheet something that's been on there for ages which I still hadn't seen; Friday the 13th Part V.  The only reason I actually have a copy of it is that it's on the same Blu Ray disc as Part VI Jason Lives, easily my favourite of the entire run, but I've never even bothered to watch V normally, because of its terrible reputation.  When something is considered "the worst one" in a series like Friday the 13th, which isn't exactly a critical darling at the best of times, you know that's something pretty bad.  So given it was the date itself yesterday, I decided to have a mini-challenge; see if I could get a bunch more donations on the Fundraiser on the promise that I spend that evening (on a Friday the 13th that had started out very, very, very well) slogging through this.  Well, the people spoke with their wallets, so let's dig into the Friday that even a lot of die hard Jason fans have turned their backs upon.  Spoilers ahoy...

What Would Ingmar Think? - The Canary Visits The Last House on the Left

Well, I decided to tackle the other big video nasty from the pile whilst I was at it.  Tackling Cannibal Holocaust actually did generate a bunch of donations (is that what it takes to make you give, MY SUFFERING?!?), so might as well see if I can go for a double.  It's the film that I think more than any other personified the sheer brutality of US exploitation cinema at the time, really got the ball rolling on quite a few other horror projects later in the decade, and had one of the best movie taglines of all time, which you can see in that trailer below... pity then it's such utter shite (oh, Spoiler for the review I guess).  It's 1972's The Last House on the Left.

Canary vs. The Ultimate Nasty - Cannibal Holocaust

Well, I was going to watch this one when the fundraising hit a certain level, but I decided to go ahead with this before then because I figured that I didn't want to have it lurking in the corner of the bedroom until next year.  So I decided to face it, a real challenge for me to sit through the whole thing.  As promised, I'm going to give my full thoughts on this one, mainly so I can properly purge the memory, and have something constructive from putting myself through it.  It's the poster child for the whole Video Nasties moral panic (somewhat literally, its poster was the main image used in a lot of news stories at the time), it's 1979's Cannibal Holocaust.

I'm not going to embed the real trailer, as even that is shockingly explicit, you can see it here if you like.  So I'll pepper this article with some trailers and clips for other cannibalism movies that I actually like.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2020 - Fundraising Begins

It's that time again!  Start the jingle!

"Two more months till Halloween!
"Halloween!
"Halloween!
"Two more months till Halloween!
"Silver Shamrock!"

October Horror Movie Challenge 2019 – Round Up & Awards

First of all, NOOOOOOO!!! I missed the last day of Blogtober!  My achievement ruined!  How will I cope?  Oh yeah, with this mindset.  Thanks Windsor!

Anyhoo, with the month finished, that's it for another year of my October Horror Movie Challenge!  Another October gone by, and yet more reasons for me to question why I am a fan of this genre at all.  Still, I've actually achieved a new record this year; last year was my previous best with 49 titles watched, this year I made it to 52!  W00t!  Now, whether I deliberately try to exceed that next time or not, I'll need to think about, this year was a bit exceptional with the Twilight and Halloween marathons.  I suppose it will depend if in charity shop hunting this year I find something that would make for a good marathon then.  Still, now it's time to have one last plug of the JustGiving appeal (which is already my most successful one to date!), and have a quick wrap up of my final thoughts on the films, giving out a few awards.

#Blogtober 19 - October Horror Movie Challenge - Canary Vs. The Halloween Franchise

Woo, it's all done!  I've finished the whole Halloween franchise for the Challenge this year!  I have a complete view of this series in entirety as a phenome- wait, sorry, what's that YouTube?

Oh.  Huh, more next year then.  Well, in the meantime, having gone through all of the films released so far, here's my ranking for the series, entry by entry.  I'll go favourite to least favourite, as I don't think number 1 is going to be any kind of surprise.

#Blogtober 16 - October Horror Movie Challenge - The Two Curses of Michael Myers

So one of the things I was wondering whether or not it would be pulled out of the Pumpkin for my horror movie challenge this year was in fact one of the first to be drawn out; the entire Halloween series.  Yep, all of the films they've done so far, and I suppose I was tempting fate when I got all of those blu rays together, for as soon as I did, they announced that two more of the things are being made.  Well, at least I'll be all caught up for them.  Now I'm going through all twelve so far released Halloween films for this.  Some of you may be going "hey wait a minute, there's only 11!", and you'd be right, but so am I.  See, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers was the first one made by Dimension Pictures, under the supervision of the Weinsteins, back when they were infamous for messing with films in post production, and not infamous for other, more serious matters.  The film has a tonne of reshoots, and re-edits, to the point that the film that got into studios had almost 70 minutes of different footage to what was originally intended.  For years, the original version, called The Producer's Cut, was something of an oddity amongst bootleggers, but recently the full thing has been restored and is now fully available on Blu Ray.  Therefore this post is about me having a look at both the versions I've seen, to say what works or doesn't about each version, which is better, and overall are either versions actually good movies, or even good Halloween sequels.  Going to get a bit spoilerly for this, including giving away how Halloween 5 ends (but that one is really not a loss; seriously, don't watch Halloween 5!), let's begin.

#Blogtober 14 - October Horror Movie Challenge - Canary vs. Twilight

Well, I did it.  I kept the promise made when I started my fundraiser this year, and have sat through all five Twilight films.  I am still recovering.  Before I take the discs along to Computer Exchange, let's have my final thoughts on the franchise, film by film followed by a general overview.  Now before I start, let's be clear that I am focusing on the films specifically, I haven't read the books (I'd need to have gotten a lot more in the fundraiser before I give up that much of my time to them!), but I know of one or two things that are different in the films, so I might make reference to those.  So let's get to it, in lots of spoilery detail; hang on tight spider monkeys!  (I can't believe I just typed that!)

#Blogtober 8 - Canary Duty - #LFF2019 Part Two

Keeping my London Film Festival coverage going in manageable chunks, and definitely not just stretching things out to make sure I have enough things to make blog posts about for this month, honest gov'!, let's carry on going through my LFF journey.  Three more films to discuss, let's get cracking!

#Blogtober 6 - Canary Duty - #LFF2019 Part One

I've been very busy this week with screenings at the London Film Festival, a whole bunch of fascinating titles, so let's have a look at the first three films I've seen.  I've included as much detail on their release dates as possible, so let's get to it, there's a lot to talk about.

#Blogtober 2 - October Horror Movie Challenge - Faces of Death

For the last few years I've been doing this challenge, I often have on the list one of the infamous Video Nasties, so I can work my way through most of them.  Thing is, for a lot of the ones on the main Section II lists (the 72 films that were charged under the Obscene Publications Act, 39 of which were prosecuted, 33 weren't), I've reached the point where what I have left are some of the more extreme titles, and a lot of the utter crap that got lumped in there.  So for the one on this week's list, I decided to make my watching of it directly linked to the fundraiser, as an incentive to get through it, as it's directly for a good cause.  I think this is perhaps the only case this particular title has done some real good, as it's one of the big ones in the field.  So in the mindset of "let's get this done quickly", here are my thoughts on the truly infamous Faces of Death...

October Horror Movie Challenge 2019 - Play Along at Home

October begins tomorrow, and thus so will my latest October Horror Movie Challenge.  My Justgiving page is still up, we're still doing the appeal for Crisis, please give generously.  It's currently at the point where I have unlocked infamous video nasty Faces of Death, I'll be doing that early on, but still need a little bit more in there before I'm forced to tackle the entire Twilight Saga.  Today though, it's time for me to do a few recommendations for those of you who'd like to try it for yourselves.  The recommendations I did for 2016 and 2018 all still stand of course, and again I suggest giving Shudder's library of titles a try; use the one month trial, that's all your Halloween viewing sorted for a fiver.  Here's another set of recent titles that I recommend giving a try.  If some of these are exclusive to particular streaming services I'll make sure to mention it.  Before I start, a quick shout out to some ones I have blogged about on here before; do check out Train to Busan and One Cut of the Dead if you haven't already.  Right, with that done, let's get started, in alphabetical order, with...

October Horror Movie Challenge 2019 - Fundraising Begins, With a New Twist!

This year, I am once again taking part in what has turned out to be one of the most enduring things to come out of the IMDb message boards (outliving the boards themselves!), The October Horror Movie Challenge!  The rules are simple; across October's 31 days, watch at least 31 horror movies, and at least half of them (so more than 16) must be ones you are watching for the first time.  As in previous years, I'll be going for as many as I can fit in, including a few new cinema releases, stuff at the London Film Festival (already booked my tickets!), but the main bulk of them coming from what I've been gathering from charity shops and the like across the year, on a random draw basis.  There are a few interesting marathons potentially on the cards this year, so I'm once again doing this sponsored, raising money for Crisis.  If you have liked my witterings about film this year and want to show your appreciation, please give what you can to my appeal, help prepare the homeless and those that would help them for the coming winter.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2018 – Round Up

Well, the Halloween season is done for another year, and with it, another one of my October Horror Movie Challenges.  This year I managed to get up to a new record of 49 movies!  Granted, I may have done a teeny bit of cheating in being a bit vague about what counted as "horror", but on the whole I'm still impressed with how many I got through, especially given my "stuff I found in charity shops" method of obtaining material.  My fundraiser for the challenge is still open, so if you have been following my Instagram posts on my progress, do please give what you can to Crisis, winter is a hard time for the homeless.  So, let's wrap up the whole thing with a look at various highs and lows amongst my movie viewing in Spoopy Season...

October Horror Movie Challenge 2018 - Pledge and Play Along at Home! #OHMC18

For months it lay dormant, now the October Horror Movie Challenge has arisen once again!  The rules for the challenge are, as always, that across the 31 days of October, you must watch at least 31 horror movies, and at least half of those (so 16 or more) must be ones that you are seeing for the first time.  Well, I have a big ol' stack of stuff I've been gathering mostly from charity shops across the year, ready to watch on a random draw basis.  Also, the London Film Festival is on, and I'm already booked for a bunch of the cult titles they are showing. My current record is 43 films, let's try for even better.

As in previous years, I'm doing this sponsored for Crisis, so please donate what you can.  I am likely to turn my brain inside out going through the discards gained from Oxfam shops, lets have at least something good come from the experience.  Also, as in previous years, I have a few recommendations of some recent/upcoming releases that you might want to try if you'd like to try the challenge yourself.  One good source of films I can recommend right now is Shudder, a very good streaming site with a great selection of horror titles I checked out earlier this year.  If you already have Amazon prime channels, you can access it there too.  Let's take a look then at some films to get you started with your own journey into fear this year, starting with something coming out on DVD tomorrow...

October Horror Movie Challenge 2016 - Play along at home! #OHMC2016

Time again for me to engage in that most mysterious of internet film geek traditions*, the October Horror Movie Challenge.  31 Days, at least 31 Horror Movies, NO EXCUSES!!!  Once again, I'm doing it sponsored for Crisis, so if you can spare a few pennies, that would be most generous of you.

This year though, I thought I'd preface the challenge itself with something that can help you play along if you so wish.  Finding the right titles to watch can be a bit of a minefield, because I will be the first to admit that, with the horror genre these days, there’s a lot of crap out there.  So here’s a very quick look at a few recent releases that may have flown under your radars, which are well worth your time (and a lot of these are available to stream or are cheap on HMV's shelves right now, so no need to go digging!).  What’s more, I guarantee that none of these end with either “they were dead all along” or “it was the lead character’s split personality”!