Hi, I’m Sam.

October is my favorite time of the year. I love fall. I love the weather. I love Halloween. I’ve always loved Halloween. As a kid, I loved Halloween. What I didn’t love, was scary movies. Merely looking at the covers of scary movies in video stores gave me the willies so bad that I couldn’t sleep. In fact, I once vomited because I allowed myself to become so frightened by a cover I had recently seen. (Although, to be fair, I vomited a lot as a kid.) At that age, the most frightening thing imaginable for me, was Chucky. The thought of your favorite toy trying to cut your head off is a pretty fucked up one for a kid to deal with, and that red headed little fucker tortured me for years. The insane thing, though, was that I was captivated. After a while, I started to go into the local video store on my own, after school. Once there, I would look at cover after cover of bad 80s slasher movies, scare the living shit out of myself, go home, and have nightmares. It was a sickening cycle of self destruction. I didn’t get over any of this in high school either. While Tim and Ben went to see the TCM remake, I stayed home and watched John Hughes movies with my sisters. Then, just after I finished my freshman year of college, I sat down and watched the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The very thought that this movie existed terrified me for a long time, yet somehow, once I saw it, something in my head flipped 180 degrees.

I have now become a full-blown horror addict. I can’t stop watching these things, especially this month. There is truly a thin line between love and hate. For this reason, I resolved to watch a horror movie I haven’t seen before for every day of October. While this didn’t pan out exactly right, since it is nearly impossible to watch a scary movie everyday without flunking your classes, it turned out quite nicely, because I started in mid september, and I am taking a film class that showed a few scare flicks. Not to mention the days where I just watched two movies. So, without further ado, here is the list of films I was lucky enough to enjoy during this month of madness.

Halloween- Terrifying, I went out and bought it after I rented it.
The Fog- No Halloween, but still very scary for a movie about ghost pirates.
The Fog(The remake)- Boring garbage.
The Wickerman- Bizarre, very interesting movie about paganism and religion.
The Hills Have Eyes-Classic, but I actually like the remake a little more.
TCM2- Written and Directed by Tobe Hooper, starring Dennis Hopper. How bad could it be? Very bad. Very, very bad.
Last House on the Left- Not only shocking, but the bad guys are highly interesting.
The Exorcist- Fuck you, Linda Blair. You will haunt my dreams until I die.
Hellraiser- This movie totally hinges on the effects, which are superb.
Scanners- Not really a horror movie, but good. Reminds me a lot of Heroes.
The Others- A lot like the original Haunting, scary without almost any special effects.
The Wolfman- Why don’t werewolves look like pitbulls anymore?
I Walked with a Zombie- Awesome, scary, B&W, pre-romero Zombie movie.
White Zombie- Another carribbean, pre-Romero zombie movie, this time with Bela Lugosi.
The Devil’s Backbone- Directed by Gullermo Del Toro, and a lot like Pan’s Labyrinth, but a ghost story instead of a weird fairy tale.
House of 1000 corpses- Surprisingly clever and scary in a lot of ways, but far too long. Only half as good as Devil’s Rejects.

Well, that’s my list. I hope to watch quite a few more in the next few days, but for now, I am pretty satisfied.