All Flicks Bright and Shiny, All Films Timeworn and Used...

Heading into the last two weekends of the Halloween season proper (I say proper because I tend to extend the holiday up until right before Thanksgiving), I am scrambling to line up appropriate movies in my Netflix cue and am scrounging On Demand for any films I simply have to cram in for a viewing in time for the big day.

My theme this year was to catch up on a lot of films from the past few years that I have either largely avoided or just didn't have the drive to go see when they came out. So many of these films are remakes of films I love too deeply in their original form to give the new versions a chance or they were overly hyped productions of the sort that always make me wary of dropping serious coin to risk seeing them. And some, like the odd Trick 'r Treat, was something about which I had not heard very much, negative or positive, so the result was a very pleasant and often scary surprise.

I've been trying hard not to revisit old favorites this year, but I am sure that as I edge closer to Halloween, that instinct will kick in and I will begin dragging out the usual suspects. I've been trying to ease myself out of that mode by watching a handful of films that I have not seen for eons, such as Something Wicked This Way Comes, Alone in the Dark or the Rankin-Bass giant killer sea turtle and ghostly girl TV flick from the '70s, The Bermuda Depths (which I purchased online from the Warner Archives). Overall, I have only previously seen 6 of the 33 genre films that I have watched since October 1st (Halloween for me allows sci-fi into the mix, and I am also counting films with slight horrific elements into it as well, such as Scorsese's horror-tinged atmospheric Shutter Island and also that ultimate desecration of our revered horror archetypes, New Moon (yes, I did go there. I consider myself a chronicler of horror trends, and if asked, I would have to answer that where Stephenie Meyer is concerned, I am a founding member of Team Death Sentence).

Apart from the surprise of Trick 'r Treat and the thoroughness and excellence of the Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown doc, my favorite discovery thus far this Halloween was finally seeing the British/Italian zombie flick, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. Seen pictures from it for so many years, but finally got down to seeing it. Catching these films is precisely the reason why I chose to concentrate on unseen films this year: I needed some new blood, whether from films new or old. As long as I have a good time watching them.

Genre films seen since October 1st:

10/01/10    Bermuda Depths, The    1978
10/02/10    Halloween II    2009
10/02/10    Them [Ils]    2006
10/03/10    Trauma    1993
10/03/10    Red Hook    2009
10/04/10    Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown    2008
10/05/10    Death Bed: The Bed That Eats    1977
10/06/10    Let Sleeping Corpses Lie [aka Don't Open the Window] [Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti]    1974
10/06/10    Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural    1973
10/07/10    Twilight Saga: New Moon, The    2009
10/08/10    Devil's Bride, The [aka The Devil Rides Out]    1968
10/09/10    Slash    2002
10/09/10    Monsterwolf    2010
10/09/10    Day the Earth Stood Still, The    2008
10/12/10    Trick 'r Treat    2007
10/13/10    Invasion, The    2007
10/13/10    Paranormal Activity    2007
10/14/10    Vampire Circus    1972
10/14/10    Underworld: Evolution    2006
10/15/10    30 Days of Night    2007
10/15/10    Crazies, The    2010
10/16/10    Shutter Island    2010
10/16/10    Something Wicked This Way Comes    1982
10/16/10    My Soul to Take 3D    2010
10/17/10    Brain That Wouldn't Die, The (Elvira’s Movie Macabre)    1960
10/17/10    Reptile, The    1966
10/17/10    Staunton Hill    2009
10/17/10    Mummy's Shroud, The    1967
10/18/10    Blood from the Mummy's Tomb    1971
10/19/10    Zombie Strippers    2008
10/19/10    Doomsday    2008
10/19/10    Friday the 13th    2009
10/20/10    Alone in the Dark    1982