10.09.2018

October is Prime Time for Horror

zombies in jail
Back in October of 2006, I decided to depart from the usual subjects here at Atheist Revolution and address one of my interests that had little to do with atheism: horror movies. During a visit to the Atheist Coalition forums (which are no longer active), someone told me about a discussion board over at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) that focused on horror films. I decided to check it out and learned about something they were doing called the October Movie Challenge. The idea was to watch 31 horror movies during the month of October. Participants updated their lists of movies watched regularly so that everyone could see what they were watching.

Kind of silly? Sure. Did I really have time to do this? Nope. Nevertheless, decided to give it a shot. Some of the movies I watched, most of which were freely available on various cable channels, were terrible. Others were outstanding. Best of all, doing this provided me with a great opportunity to see many horror classics that I had never gotten around to seeing. I have to admit that there was a downside. Even for a horror fan like me, cramming 31 movies into a month proved to be a bit much. At the end of the month, I was tired of watching movies.

Since then, I have usually watched quite a few horror films in October. I have done so at my own pace without trying to hit any particular number, and this has made the process far more enjoyable. I have even written about some of them here in previous Octobers.

I am not planning to write a similar series of posts this year. I know I have gone into at least one previous October saying the same thing and ended up doing it anyway; however, I am fairly confident that I will not do so this year. What makes this October different from the last two is that I never stopped watching horror movies as October of 2017 drew to a close. Since I enjoy them as much as I do, I figured there was no reason to confine them to October. I have been watching them year-round and even writing about them periodically.
As a result, of my year-round horror binge, I am approaching this October differently. I plan to take advantage of the greater number of horror films available on cable during the month, but I'll record many of them to get me through November and December.