31 Days of Horror 2013: Day 1: Halloween

Last year, I attempted to watch at least 31 horror movies in October (an average of one a day) and blog about each one.  I succeeded with the first goal, and although I failed with the second, I did manage to blog about 25 days of horror.  I plan to watch at least 31 horror movies this October as well, but I’m not even trying to blog about each movie this year.  I’ll be happy to work in a few posts a week.

Vicki and I kicked off the month of horror with John Carpenter’s Halloween, which might seem a bit like opening all our Christmas presents on December 1, but I disagree.  It helped get us in the spirit.  For us, the big event that the entire month is leading up to is the viewing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 

I’ve seen Halloween at least a dozen times, and I always enjoy watching it again.  What makes it so effective is that there is no attempt to give Michael Myers a motive for returning to Haddonfield and killing teenagers on Halloween.  The only explanation is that he is pure evil.  This aspect of the story is lost in the sequels and in Rob Zombie’s terrible remake, all of which offer explanations that have something to do with family relationships, and in doing so they deprive the story of what makes it truly horrifying.  Rob Zombie of all people should know that a killing spree that can’t be explained is much more frightening than one that can.   Having said this, I should also acknowledge that Zombie’s Halloween 2 is one of the best horror movies of the past years (I’ll explain why after a I watch it again later this month).

I’m looking forward to a month of horror movies.  Vicki and I carefully planned our list of movies on Saturday night.  A selection of our favorites makes up half the list, and the other half are movies neither of us have seen.  Most of my choices are Hammer movies from the 60’s and 70’s, but I think Vicki’s are more varied.

We’ll also be celebrating all month by eating several boxes of Monster cereal.  This October, for the first time ever, all five flavors will be available: Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, Frute Brute, and Fruity Yummy Mummy.  We haven’t been able to find the latter two yet, but they’re supposed to be available at Target.