Hooptober 11 | Here Lies a Story

THE BER MONTHS ARE HERE! If you are on this site, you’re stoked. I am stoked. SF’s warmest weather, PSLs ORRRR homemade pumpkin cream cold brew (ur bitch has a recipe), tiny candy, and HORROR. My teenagers are back in school, which means some time has opened up between me yelling at them to turn the video games down and picking up frozen food wrappers all over the house. Time that can be spent (1) buying witch and bat themed shit that I don’t need on Instagram (2) watching TikToks of Halloween commercials from the 80s and (3) researching ALL THE FUCKIN MOVIES I’M GOING TO WATCH.

Now, I do this as a matter of routine every year but THIS YEAR I discovered Hooptober! Hooptober (for Tobe Hooper) was started by cinemonster on Letterboxd. I wasn’t on Letterboxd because I already have approximately 16,000 social apps, but I saw @brandontoksmovies post about it on that Chinese Communist App and now I have 16,001. Cinemonster creates a list of criteria, and you choose 31 horror movies to watch between 9/15 and 10/31. People publish their lists and the app makes you an extremely satisfying little grid of all the titles.

This year’s criteria:

There must be 31 horror films
6 countries
8 decades
ALL of the films from a horror franchise with at least 4 entries (if there is a hard reboot, you can choose whichever has 4+ that you prefer)
1 film by Wes Craven
1 film caused by/worsened by weather
1 film starring a Black woman
1 Donald Sutherland film
3 films from New World Pictures
2 Indian films
4 Italian films
2 Horror comedies
2 films made primarily or entirely in Texas
1 film that exists in at least 2 available cuts (you just have to watch one. Bonus if you watch them all)
1 Robert Wiene film
1 Michele Soavi film
1 film from 2011
1 film from 1984

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)

***FOR THOSE THAT LIKE TO DO EXTRA WORK:
WATCH Cyclone and Crawlspace. Like last year, there is a third film: We Are Zombies

I spent all weekend working on my list. This is my fantasy football draft, you guys. I decided to watch only movies I’ve never seen, or seen so long ago that I barely remember. What I love about this list is it forces you to try some new shit! If, like me, you tend to revisit the old favorites every year you can totally do that, but I’m pumped to have a whole bunch of new options and as a Virgo let me remind you that there’s nothing more gratifying than completing a list.

I have two genres especially queued up – The Alien franchise, and Italian giallo. With Romulus out, I was planning on watching them all anyway, but I’m going in story order – not by release date. I’ve been wanting to dive into Italian horror ever since I wrote about Cannibal Holocaust – a movie I could not actually watch, so I included one of each from the 4 most important directors
(Argento, Bava, Fulci, and Deodato), so I can get a little film school education here. If that sounded uptight DON’T WORRY I also included a dozen 80’s schlock horror movies.

I’m excited to check out some horror from India, which I haven’t seen. If you’re not sure where to start, I basically googled it and checked the Rotten Tomatoes ratings. You can also look at other people’s lists for inspiration. Oh, and for Texas – definitely watch The Dark and the Wicked. It’s one of the most fucked up movies I’ve ever seen. The only reason it’s not on my list is I’ve seen it twice. I WILL PROBABLY WATCH IT AGAIN ANYWAY.

You should make your own list!!! Share it with me on Instagram! Friend me on Letterboxd (is that even an option???? lol). If you found anything new or unusual to fit into the list let me know!

Happy Watching, bbs.