We’re on the far side of November now, but I am finally taking the time to look back at my favorite month of the year. This past October was wonderfully full of birthday cake, cross-country meets, hiking beneath the giant sequoias, acquiring a new kitten (hi, George Michael!), and of course, tackling Booklist’s annual horror film challenge.
I hit 36 films this year, and with the discovery of ShudderTV, I was able to watch a lot of indie and foreign films I hadn’t seen before, plus some great stuff from the seventies. The list is below. I’ve highlighted in green a few favorites, and I eagerly await 2018.
Oh! This is also a chance to mention that I’ve greatly enjoyed the horror resurgence of 2017. I was thrilled by the brilliance of GET OUT, loved the toothy leer of old Pennywise, but one film I really admired, and which has stuck with me, was IT COMES AT NIGHT. A slow burn, perhaps, but well worth it.
My list:
36. LAKE MUNGO Meet Alice Palmer, Australia’s Laura Palmer. #31horrorfilms31days
35. THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE Oh, this was right up my alley. Mental illness, self-loathing, and the language of empathy. #31horrorfilms31days
34. RED DRAGON Ralph Fiennes gets a tattoo. Kills everyone. #31horrorfilms31days
33. HOSTEL: PART II Elite Hunting gets sloppy again. #31horrorfilms31days
32. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS We let the kids pick tonight’s movie, and monsters that we are, we let them watch it. #31horrorfilms31days
31. DRAG ME TO HELL That was a lot of dragging over a button. RIP kitten. #31horrorfilms31days
30. SPRING An American fugitive heads to Italy where he finds an earthly (and dangerous) sort of miracle. #31horrorfilms31days
29. PIÑATA: SURVIVAL ISLAND A $20k purse competitive panty hunt + partying co-eds + an ancient piñata filled with evil #31horrorfilms31days
28. CARRIE (2013) Remakes are tough, but there were a few moments before the blood’s spilled that really worked for me #31horrorfilms31days
27. HONEYMOON How do you REALLY know you’re not marrying an alien host? #31horrorfilms31days
26. SUN CHOKE Little girls and their violence… #31horrorfilms31days
25. CUBE Interestingly enough, this was pretty much the same story as THE BAR, except it featured Leon from PIN. #31horrorfilms31days
24. THE BAR A group of strangers trapped in a Madrid bar by an unseen killer. Human nature, as always, prevails. #31horrorfilms31days
23. THE BABYSITTER Okay, I thought this was a remake of the Alicia Silverstone movie. Spoiler alert: It’s not. #31horrorfilms31days
22. RESOLUTION A junkie and his best friend just might find God out in the scrubby California wilderness. #31horrorfilms31days
21. THE GALLOWS The Hangman Cometh. Was this going for gasps? Or laughs? #31horrorfilms31days
20. FRIDAY THE 13TH Yeah, we should’ve watched this one yesterday. #31horrorfilms31days
19. FRIGHT NIGHT It’s an abundance of 80’s goodness when a vampire moves in next door to a teen horror fan. #31horrorfilms31days
18. WOULD YOU RATHER That’s really not how I remember that game. #31horrorfilms31days
17. THE SACRAMENT A fictionalized found-footage version of the Jonestown tragedy.
16. BE AFRAID I don’t know what this movie had to do with sleep paralysis, but that corn monster scared me. #31horrorfilms31days
15. I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE An elderly horror novelist hires a hospice nurse who scares easily. #31horrorfilms31days
14. FUNNY GAMES A Clockwork Orange, this was not. #31horrorfilms31days
13. ALWAYS SHINE Best friends harboring some dark career rivalry head to Big Sur for the weekend. Rompers abound. #31horrorfilms31days
12. WOLF CREEK Australian Outback Texas Chainsaw Deliverance Massacre #31horrorfilms31days
11. THE REEF Step 1. boat capsizes in Australia’s shark-infested waters Step 2. Everyone gets in the water. Yikes. #31horrorfilms31days
10. AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970) Two girls cycling the French countryside. One vanishes. It’s all downhill from there. #31horrorfilms31days
9. CRUSH THE SKULL Just the right amount of pedicure comedy mixed into this torturous game of cat and mouse. #31horrorfilms31days
8. IMAGES Robert Altman’s 1972 look at a children’s author’s lonely descent in madness. Goodbye, unicorn. #31horrorfilms31days
7. THE LAST EXORCISM A fraudulent exorcist heads out on one last scam & ignores some very real drawings of his fate. #31horrorfilms31days
6. RAW Reasons not to go to college with your sister: jealousy, secrets, family drama, she’ll eat your boyfriend. #31horrorfilms31days
5. THE CRAFT Snakes. Hexes. Walking on water? Something witchy this way comes. With bonus nineties Skeet Ulrich. #31horrorfilms31days
3. SWEET, SWEET LONELY GIRL A doll broke. An aunt died. Someone wore a bunny mask. Was this a horror movie? #31horrorfilms31days
2. BLUE SUNSHINE Disco, LSD, copious wig snatching, and a politician who wants to “make America good again.” #31horrorfilms31days
1. COMPLIANCE Nastiness going down at the Chickwhich. I really don’t think this is what Stanley Milgram had in mind. #31horrorfilms31days
-sk