31 Days of Halloween

 

I've seen a lot of things floating around the interwebz lately about how Halloween is cancelled because of the pandemic, just like everything else has been in the last few months. Well, we here at SSTAS (the "we" being me, my wife, and our two cats, who are of course very invested in my success here, as we all know cats are never disinterested, aloof little bastards) have very strong feelings about Halloween in general, and even stronger feelings about the cancellation thereof:

Fuck. That.

We're going to go in the exact opposite direction of cancelling Halloween and do Halloween every day with 31 Days of Halloween! Thirty-one days of horror-themed programming, a movie a day, with some TV shows thrown in, to make sure Halloween gets its due this year. And I'm not talking about how some cable channels do it, where they show the same seven movies again and again all month long. No, we're doing thirty-one different programs. Don't believe me? See for yourself!

As you can see, there's a nice mix of everything in there, new movies premiering on various streaming services this month, a bunch of classics, a ridiculous comedy or two, a few binge-worthy new shows (highlighted in blue) and what are probably a few controversial choices too... I'm looking at you, Rob Zombie's Halloween movies!

Aside from luxuriating in horror to celebrate the glory of Halloween, another purpose of this is to broaden my wife's horizons when it comes to horror movies; she never really watched any growing up and hasn't seen really any of Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, and all their friends. I've done a good job in the almost seven years we've been together exposing her to more and more, but since she still tries to only let us watch horror flicks in the daytime with the curtains open wide, it's time to really do a deep dive with her. That's why we're starting off light and easy with Trick r' Treat, taking a break in the middle for what I'm sure will be the absolutely ridiculous Hubie Halloween, and then finishing up on Halloween itself with the Exorcist, a movie even I've been too afraid to watch for a long time. I'll probably write reviews up for the new shows and maybe the new movies and do weekly updates about how it's going, what my wife did or didn't like, how much sleep we're losing, things like that.

Of course, this isn't the extent of what we're watching. There's also Halloween Wars and Outrageous Pumpkins on the Food Channel, Eli Roth's History of Horror season 2 on AMC, and of course whatever various Walking Dead shows make it on the air this month, it's getting hard to keep track. And on Halloween after we watch the Exorcist bright and early (because even I won't watch that shit in the dark at night), we'll fill the rest of the day with various things like It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and other Halloween themed TV episodes and stuff. And I'm sure we'll get to the alternates I have listed at the bottom of the calendar too. 

So that's our 31 Days of Halloween plan. Got any thoughts on the movies we'll be watching? Or even better, got anything you know YOU'LL be watching this Halloween? Let's talk about it!

P.S. It's been pointed out that the calendar pic above might not be the easiest to read on some devices, so just to make things easier, here's the planned movies and shows in list form:

Trick 'r Treat

The Prophecy

The Strangers

Monsterland

Stuff

The Lie (Welcome to the Blumhouse)

Books of Blood

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th Part 2

Haunting of Bly Major

The Final Girls

Black Box (Welcome to the Blumhouse)

1408

Hubie Happen

Love and Monsters

Leprechaun

Helstrom

Nightmare on Elm Street

Evil Eye (Welcome to the Blumhouse)

Rebecca

Malevolent

Fright Night (2011)

The Amityville Horror (2005)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Emelie

Nocturne (Welcome to the Blumhouse)

Halloween (2007)

Halloween 2 (2009)

His House

The Exorcist