October Horror Challenge 2013 - Final Days and Final Thoughts

The last few days of the challenge were all similar in that each had 2 movies per day, starting with day 28 and Burnt Offerings. This haunted house story from director Dan Curtis is a slow burn, spine tingling affair that manages to get under your skin without a terrible amount of action. A really good entry into the genre.

Then came the great Lord Of Tears which I reviewed in length HERE

Day 29 featured a movie I love and a movie I fell in love with Cemetery Man was first, a dark comedy zombie movie from Italian director Michele Soavi which is one of my favorite horror films of the 90s. If you haven't seen it you should track it down.

Then was Possession a film I'd never seen before and hadn't seen discussed much but always met with rave reviews when it was brought up. I can see why it received almost universal praise. This is a damn fine film starring Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani that has the most dysfunctional relationship since The Shining, granted it was made only a year after. This film is nothing like the Kubrick classic though but it is damn good.

October 30th featured The Witchmaker, a complete bore of a film. Some people hanging out in a cabin in the swamp to do some psychic research and are picked off one by one to be part of this devil worshipping cult. The thing with these movies is that they're usually at least cheaply entertaining or feature some good looking T & A but nope, not here. BORRRRING.

I had to follow that up with Trick 'R Treat to get the crappy taste out of my mouth. This movie is a perfect fit for the season and I fall a little more in love with it every year.

Halloween day was another short one featuring just Halloween, the yearly tradition of course, and The Wolf Man, for the first time on Blu-ray. I love The Wolf Man and seeing it with a gorgeous HD transfer was breathtaking. The new transfer for Halloween is a treat as well and that movie remains one of my 2 favorite films.

Thank you for sticking with me through the 31 days, now comes time for my final thoughts and some tidbits of information...



THE WRAP UP
At the conclusion of last year's challenge I mentioned that 2013 would be my 5th and likely final year of attempting (and batting 1.000) 100 horror movies in the month of October. That will be the case. Like last year, there were many times when I wasn't enjoying myself as much as I should due to being burnt out on watching movies. This is partially the cause of the amount of absolute crap that I watched but it is also the pace of averaging over 3 movies per day. It just becomes mentally draining. This was the first year I also fell far behind on reviews I need to tackle so that was looming over my head. I will certainly still do a 31 Days of Horror type deal in the future along with all the contests and fun that come along with it.

And on to the statistics...

Total Films Watched - 106
First Time Film Viewings - 81 (76% - the same percentage as last year oddly enough)
Average Film Score - 6.16/10
5 Best First Time Viewings - Lord Of Tears, Possession, Goke Body Snatcher From Hell, Nekromantik, Corruption
5 Worst First Time Viewings - Detention, A Haunted House,Captives, Wishmaster 2, Wishmaster 4
Biggest Surprise - WNUF Halloween Special
Biggest Disappointment -Black Waters Of Echo's Pond

Thoughts To Sum It Up - The classics are classic for a reason, Pete Walker is underrated, gothic horror still lives, I don't think I can take another shot on video slasher until next year. Why did the Carrie remake even happen? Detention is still the worst piece of shit I've ever seen. Thanks for reading and following along, you guys and girls are awesome.