halloween movie fest 2017 is here (and not a moment too soon)!

You wouldn’t know it from the weather in Brooklyn, but the time has come for another Halloween Movie Fest. Or, as my great-great-grandather always used to say, “Thank God, it’s Halloween Movie Fest!” Or, TGIHMF. (How would I trademark that? I feel like it’s definitely going to catch on with a wider public.)

HMF is my favorite annual glorious waste of my own time. I really need it this year, because the world is falling apart and depression is a fucking asshole.

I am so ready for this excursion into the familiar world of Halloween and its related cinema, a tradition that began for me in 2009.

I love Halloween, with its deep reliance on story and myth. For me, it’s like an entire holiday dedicated to telling ghost stories around a fire on a chilly autumn evening. HMF has come to be a means of extending that feeling throughout more of the month.

For previous fests, I would select a specific number of films and watch a movie a day. [That’s always the format for Another Day, Another Movie]. However, this year I’ve chosen 31 films, one for every day of the month, and I’ll get through as many as I can. I hereby promise all four people who read this blog that I will watch no fewer than 21 films. However, I doubt my schedule will allow me to watch a movie a day for the entire month of October. I’ll be damned if I’m not going to try, but odds aren’t great.

The 2017 list includes some straight scary fare, a few horror comedies (because obviously), some lighter Halloween-friendly films, and Room 237, a documentary about interpretations of The Shining and the intense devotion to the film’s many mysteries (I might be stretching my own premise a bit with that last one).

19 of the 31 are films I’ve seen before, so obviously I’m leaning into some favorites I’m in the mood to rewatch. Many are films I loved after seeing them for the first time during previous Halloween Movie Fests.

Here are the films, in no particular order:

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
3. The Shining
4. Room 237
5. Under the Shadow
6. Don’t Breathe
7. The Void
8. XX
9. 28 Days Later
10. What We Do in the Shadows
11. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
12. Tetsuo: The Iron Man
13. It (2017)
14. The Haunting
15. House
16. Phantasm
17. Beetlejuice
18. Dead of Night
19. Pet Sematary
20. Housebound
21. Pontypool
22. Cabin in the Woods
23. The Babadook
24. Let the Right One In
25. It Follows
26. The Evil Dead
27. Evil Dead II
28. Army of Darkness
29. Coraline
30. The Devil’s Backbone
31. Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some movies to watch.