I’ve never been one to go in for the whole “watch only horror movies in October” thing. I’m not enough of a fan of the genre to delight in the prospect of immersing myself in it for 31 days straight; and, while I’m sure I have more than enough qualifying titles I want to see to fill that period (probably several times over), there’s so much else to watch too. I don’t know if I’ve ever gone a whole October without watching a single horror movie (I haven’t bothered to go back and check), but the very fact I think it’s possible says all it needs to, I feel.

That said, this year I did make a bit of an effort — while also aiming to hit my remaining Challenge categories, of course. So, for example, I picked out martial arts horror movies to tick off slot(s) in the Genre category; for my Rewatch, I looked to horror movies I’d been meaning to revisit; and for Blindspot, I specifically saved the two horror titles for this month — they weren’t originally included for that purpose (if they had been, I would’ve only picked one), but it’s a fringe benefit.

Well, those were my plans, anyway. Did I meet them all, or did I drift somewhere along the way? Read on to find out…

#76 Attempt to Kill (1961) — Wildcard #7
#77 Man Detained (1961) — Wildcard #8
#78 Host (2020) — Failure #10
#79 Encounter of the Spooky Kind (1980) — Genre #7
#80 Erin Brockovich (2000) — Rewatch #10
#81 The Wages of Fear (1953) — WDYMYHS #9
#82 Rosemary’s Baby (1968) — Blindspot #9
#83 Dreadnaught (1981) — Genre #8
#84 Possession (1981) — Blindspot #10
#85 The Guest (2014) — Wildcard #9

• I watched ten feature films I’d never seen before in October.
• Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
• I only ‘needed’ to get to #83 this month, so I’m currently ahead of schedule. More on why that’s especially beneficial right now in the “next month” section.
• Outside of the Challenge, Encounter of the Spooky Kind was my 100th new film in 2024. That may not be my ‘official’ goal anymore, but hitting that milestone still feels worthy of note.
• This month’s Genre films were both chosen because they were also labelled as horror films. Encounter lived up to it; Dreadnaught was a stretch (it’s sort of like a slasher movie, but only in a handful of individual sequences, not across the entire movie).
• Three more Wildcards down, leaving just one for the final sixth of the year. I should have gone for a New Film on Halloween (I even had several horror options on hand), as I didn’t watch a 2024 release in October in the end, but I really fancied rewatching The Guest (which, if you don’t know, is set around Halloween, including a climax at the venue for a high school Halloween dance).
• Possibly my most film-snob-y habit / opinion / whatever is that I insist on watching (feature) films on a TV (or at the cinema, obv). I don’t watch them on a computer; nor on a tablet; certainly not on a phone. But I made an exception for Host, because it’s such a ‘Zoom call’ movie that it kinda felt wrong to watch it on my TV when it was just as easy to watch it on my desktop (because it’s streaming on iPlayer).
• This month’s Blindspot films were a pair of horror flicks I’d been saving especially for October, so I’m glad I got them both in. Specifically, they were Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession. Also, I’ve just realised they were both directed by Polish émigrés and about bad/abusive marriages. Coincidencetastic!
• I didn’t have any outright horror films to choose for this month’s WDYMYHS viewing, but I went for The Wages of Fear because it has “fear” in the title — as good a reason as any, I guess.
• From last month’s “failures” I watched Host.

Favourite Film of the Month
It was a largely middling month, quality-wise, which would often make this category hard, but in fact made it easy, because one new film I watched was actually great and so stood head and shoulders above the others — that being Rosemary’s Baby. (I just realised the award title doesn’t actually specify “new film”, but it should. If rewatches were eligible, The Guest would’ve walked it.)

Least Favourite Film of the Month
The flip side to (almost) everything being middling is that there was nothing outright terrible. The two I’d single out at the bottom of the barrel are Dreadnaught and Attempt to Kill. The latter takes it because, although it’s not bad, it is thoroughly mediocre from beginning to end; and while I didn’t actually care for a lot of Dreadnaught, at least it has some fantastic sequences.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
There was only one film review to compete with my monthly summary and “failures” this month. Whether or not the fact it was for an acclaimed film by a beloved director had any bearing on the post’s success, I don’t know; but either way, the victory goes to Incendies.

Incendies

Just two months of the year remain, and I feel like I need to be tactically-minded to complete my goals — after all, I failed in my New 100 Films Challenge in both its first and second years, so perhaps a different focus is needed to get it over the line this time.

On the bright side, I’m currently ahead of target pace, which is potentially a big bonus. That should go without saying as a general point, but it’s specifically the case with regard to the end of December. The final weeks of the year are a bad time to be trying to catch up, or even stay on target, as Christmastime family commitments make it trickier to watch films (especially specific films, as opposed to “what can we find to appease everyone?”) If I can get further ahead of target in November, that might enable me to push through the final few Challenge films in early December. According to the rules, December could be left with a minimum of five films (a new film, a rewatch, a ‘failure’ from November, plus the twelfth films from Blindspot and WDYMYHS) — if I can get to #95 by the end of November, that would be super.

All of which said, I don’t want to ‘gamify’ my film viewing too much, because that tick-box mentality is not the right way to approach art. But it’s been my attitude (for almost 18 whole years now) that if having these goals pushes me to watch a film, rather than spending another evening deciding it would be easier to just veg on social media or whatever, that can only be a good thing.