***Official 23rd Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challenge 2022*** (1 Viewer)

[John Stell]

1. Watch 13 Scary/Horror/Halloween-Themed films, etc. from midnight October 1, 2022 through October 31, 2022 (use your own time zone to set the ending time).

2. Theatrically released films and short features count as 1 point each. Running times are irrelevant. TV specials (e.g. "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!") and individual episodes of anthology TV series (e.g. "The Twilight Zone") also count as 1 point each. For episodic TV series, 2 hour-long episodes (e.g. "The Walking Dead") count as 1 point and 3 episodes of 30 minute-long episodes (e.g. "The Munsters") count as 1 point.

3. Two of the 13 films, et. al. must be new discoveries, movies you've never seen before. The point of this is to see those few movies you've always meant to see, but never got around to. Please specify new discoveries in your film list by making them bold, adding asterisks, different colors, etc.

4. Come here and talk about 'em.

5. There is an uber-category, the Ultimate Splatter Challenge for those who wish to put all of the rest of us to shame. This is the heavyweight division. These people, if they choose to accept the challenge, must view 31 horror/scary/Halloween themed movies before dawn on Nov. 1st. Ten new discoveries are recommended for this one. The rest of us will bow down in awed reverence to these truly "Splatterific" HTF members. The bragging rights will be awesome and long lived. What movies qualify? If you wanna include it, go for it. There will be no hairsplitting. If The Wizard of Oz sends you to the dresser for a fresh pair of boxer shorts, all the power.

6. At the end of the challenge, the totals will be added up based on the point system outlined in number 2 above.

2021 Challenge Results (new discoveries in parentheses):

TravisS 143 (2)
BobO'Link 132 (53)
Michael Elliott 128 (76)
JasonRoer 127 (46)
John Stell 121 (10)
Ruz-El 92 (59)
BryanH 57 (21)
Dpippel 53 (9)
Sleroi 36 (16)
Neil Middlemiss 31 (18)
Malcolm R 29 (11)
Jeff Flugel 27 (20)
HawksFord 26 (7)
Tony Bensley 20 (4)

 

[John Stell]

Thanks for taking the time to post this! nice to see all the totals. This year was one of the funnest yet! Thanks to all who participated!

You're welcome. I do hope one of the top four (hint, hint) watchers will oversee things next year. I'm just getting lazier as I get older. I still want/need to go through and read each and every post. But between my job, my family (after getting home I'm usually taking one of my kids to something), my movie watching, my writing-up what I watch, my writing hobby (see links in my signature if at all interested), and now the Noirvember challenge (which I didn't realize just how much I'd enjoy but am now fully committed to), where does one find the time? I put more value in what people write here than I do in Rotten Tomatoes and the like. So, I do appreciate the time people spend to share their thoughts. They deserve to be read.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Appreciate the added work, John. I'll definitely host it next year if I'm still alive. I'll bring this thread up a few weeks before.

 

[Malcolm R]

Only three months ....

Start planning your viewing.

 

[dpippel]

 

[Ruz-El]

I've already started pushing horror adjacent titles to the bottom of my watchlist to watch in October lol

 

[BobO'Link]

I've already started pushing horror adjacent titles to the bottom of my watchlist to watch in October lol

I did that in July - on another forum there's a July SF/Fantasy challenge in which I participate every year... about half way through I'll shift any qualifying title which also has a horror genre tag to the bottom of the stack so I'll have more for October should I not get to it in July.

 

[BobO'Link]

 

[Malcolm R]

I started watching Slasher: Solstice, over the weekend. About 3 episodes in I realized I should probably hold it for October.

 

[BobO'Link]

 

[JasonRoer]

My wife and I never watched The Walking Dead. I have no idea why this occured, it just did. So we dove in about a month ago and we are addicted!! We've plowed through and we're on Season 10. The sad part is that we will likely only have a few seasons of the spinoff Fear the Walking Dead or maybe Dead City left to watch during October. TWD is just so dang good.

As for this holiday weekend, I'm watching Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends while my wife is off on an adventure with our daughter and my mother-in-law. The Halloween Season starts on September 1st for me. So here we are.

 

[Ruz-El]

Setting discs aside from my unwatched pile for next month and thinking things like "Is Robocop a monster movie? Is that cheating?"

 

[BobO'Link]

Setting discs aside from my unwatched pile for next month and thinking things like "Is Robocop a monster movie? Is that cheating?"

Absolutely not!! I do several challenges (different genres) on another site... for the July SF/Fantasy one I started removing the SF/Horror titles from the pile as the month got shorter. I'll be watching *those* next month.

 

[Ruz-El]

Absolutely not!! I do several challenges (different genres) on another site... for the July SF/Fantasy one I started removing the SF/Horror titles from the pile as the month got shorter. I'll be watching *those* next month.

But what if Robocop is considered a "Frankenstein" remix? If I really stretch it?
I'm just kidding, a massive 3 part documentary on the making of it came out and has me itching for a revisit. I'll probably hit it post challenge haha

 

[dpippel]

But what if Robocop is considered a "Frankenstein" remix? If I really stretch it?
I'm just kidding, a massive 3 part documentary on the making of it came out and has me itching for a revisit. I'll probably hit it post challenge haha

I'd say that the rules about which films "count" in the challenge are fairly flexible. Robocop? Go for it.

 

[Malcolm R]

The biggest rule is that there really aren't any rules about specific content or titles. I think the themes and violence in RoboCop are enough to be "scary" and fine for the challenge.

And I think Howie was agreeing that it's fine. I believe the "absolutely not" was directed at your query of "is that cheating?"

 

[Ruz-El]

I'd say that the rules about which films "count" in the challenge are fairly flexible. Robocop? Go for it.

I bend the rules enough as it haha. I'm kidding around, I got more than enough to watch

 

[BobO'Link]

But what if Robocop is considered a "Frankenstein" remix? If I really stretch it?
I'm just kidding, a massive 3 part documentary on the making of it came out and has me itching for a revisit. I'll probably hit it post challenge haha

Why would it *not* be a Frankenstein remix of sorts? What *is* a cyborg if not a modern day version of Frankenstein?

IMDB has a "thriller" tag on it. In my book a "thriller" is often a horror movie in all but name. I can *easily* see Robocop being considered a horror movie.

 

[BobO'Link]

The biggest rule is that there really aren't any rules about specific content or titles. I think the themes and violence in RoboCop are enough to be "scary" and fine for the challenge.

And I think Howie was agreeing that it's fine. I believe the "absolutely not" was directed at your query of "is that cheating?"

Yes - exactly. In re-reading that post it really doesn't quite come off that way, does it?

 

[Ruz-El]

I honestly didn't mean to debate Robocop, I swear lol. For me, it's an action movie first. There isn't any real part where it feels like it's trying to spook or scare you, and the monster aspect is played for action as opposed to a traditional monster film. Like many films though, it plays with genre so I wouldn't harsh anyone that did include it. I want to watch that five hour documentary first though, and I won't be getting to it pre-challenge so I wont be watching till after.

I'll most likely bend the "Thriller is a horror" film aplenty trying to find things not too gory/scary with mom in the evenings since I'm still caretaking her as she's 84. (Not complaining).

 

[dpippel]

I honestly didn't mean to debate Robocop, I swear lol. For me, it's an action movie first. There isn't any real part where it feels like it's trying to spook or scare you, and the monster aspect is played for action as opposed to a traditional monster film. Like many films though, it plays with genre so I wouldn't harsh anyone that did include it.

I'd say that Robocop contains enough body horror angles to be a valid entry, if that kind of thing scares or disturbs you.