I don’t usually watch a great many horror films in October, but I made a bit of an effort this year. Not exclusively, by any means, but I did get through a few more than normal — enough that I might have used a relevant adjective for this post’s title, were I not midway through a year-long theme.

Speaking of year-long themes, my Challenge is now down to just six films behind target pace, the best it’s been since January, when I got off to a poor start by being five films behind. That by no means makes it a dead cert (the average calculation doesn’t allow for the fact December never has as much free time for me as any other month), but it means my annual goal does remain within reach.

#64 Nanook of the North (1922) — Failure #10
#65 Vampire Hunter D (1985) — Wildcard #10
#66 Ratatouille (2007) — Rewatch #7
#67 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) — Blindspot #7
#68 Marvel’s The Avengers (2012) — Rewatch #8
#69 House of Wax 3D (1953) — Genre #6
#70 Werewolf of London (1935) — Series Progression #9
#71 Creature from the Black Lagoon 3D (1954) — Genre #7
#72 The Phantom Carriage (1921) — Blindspot #8
#73 The Maze 3D (1953) — Genre #8
#74 The Cremator (1969) — WDYMYHS #7
#75 Bwana Devil 3D (1952) — Genre #9
#76 Obsession (2025) — New Film #10
#77 Poltergeist (1982) — Blindspot #9

• I watched 15 feature films I’d never seen before in October.
• That makes it the highest-totalling month for first-time watches since December 2021!
• What once would have been par for the course (or even below: my average month from 2015–2021 had 17 first-time watches) now took a concerted effort, but it does mean completing my Challenge remains within the realm of possibility.
• Speaking of which, 12 of those 15 counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
• Vampire Hunter D completes the Wildcard category, the first group to be finished for this year’s Challenge. No surprise, really: it’s not month-limited like several of the others, and it’s wide open to any film that doesn’t qualify elsewhere. Indeed, it’s so easy that last year I’d finished it by March. That it’s taken me all the way ’til October this year is another indicator of how poorly 2026 has gone (as if any more indicators were needed).
• One thing I sort of keep an eye on but don’t really track is my ‘completion’ of the alphabet in each year’s viewing — i.e. titles that begin with every letter from A to Z (plus numbers, natch). This year, despite my relatively paltry total, I’ve still hit most of the alphabet, missing some of the typically awkward letters like U, X, Y, Z… and A. You’d think A would be commonplace, right? But after 73 new films, I’ve still not seen one with a title that begins with “A”. Huh.
• You could argue that Marvel’s The Avengers counts, depending which of its myriad alternate word combinations you use. I’m listing it as that because it’s the (current) onscreen title on Disney+ in the UK, where I watched it this time — but that title begins with M, obviously.
• Having finally got my Blindspot and WDYMYHS categories numerically balanced in August and kept them that way in September, this month I tipped it over again. That was thanks to there being an overabundance of Halloween-ish movies in one category and not really any in the other. The way that particular cookie crumbled was as follows…
• This month’s Blindspot films were 1931 horror movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1982 horror movie Poltergeist, and 1921 Dickensian-style morality fantasy The Phantom Carriage, under the misapprehension (perpetuated widely online, to be fair) that it was a horror movie.
• This month’s WDYMYHS film was another I’d argue is widely miscategorised as a horror movie, The Cremator. Just because the events that occur in a black comedy / drama are horrific does not make it “a horror film”.
• From last month’s “failures” I only watched Nanook of the North.

Favourite Film of the Month
Quite a few acclaimed and/or classic horror movies made it into my viewing this October, but there was a clear victor as far as I was concerned: the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a triumph of performance, makeup, special effects, and general filmmaking techniques that belie its early-’30s origin.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This category was a little harder to settle on, because a few things disappointed or underwhelmed me in different ways this month. I think perhaps the ‘winner’ is Jess Franco’s book-faithful Count Dracula, if only because it feels like it could have been so much better, especially when making-of-cum-retelling Vampir Cuadecuc is right there to show us something more interesting.

Normal (i.e. non-horror) service resumes as 2026 races towards the end.