31 4 31

Let the ritual commence. October is here, and in this house we're watching one horror movie per night until Halloween. This isn't a huge disruption to our standard evening entertainment, since it's perpetually spooky here, but I'm excited to settle into our peaceful, blood-smeared autumn routine.

Meg, there's a spot on the couch for you, as always.

We'll do it as a living list this year, and I'll add the movies and ratings as we watch them. My partner's rating is ♡ and mine is ♡♡. We decide our ratings independently, so any overlap is just an obnoxious and slightly sweet coincidence.

and some notes, I guess

1: I picked our first watch, and I had an acute craving for The Hills Have Eyes, specifically the version I saw as a teenager. There's a distinct edge to horror films of the early 2000s, the age of Hostel and Saw and Rob Zombie in the director's chair, and I just needed it. Referencing 70s slasher films and eschewing complicated context, horror movies of the aughts are unburdened by heavy subplots of generational trauma and severe mental illness, as is the standard today. These are vignettes of primal fear, disgust and torture, the best ones made with practical effects and buckets of corn syrup blood, and I find them to be deeply soothing. The Hills Have Eyes still delivers.