FantasticVSDoom

Well, if all goes as planned, I should finally be able to hit 100 this year... Hopefully!

OldBoy

perfect. thanks view!

Trevor

This isn't intended to be a dick move (though it would be cool if you thought it was) but just as a discussion stimulus.

The below are the film choosers who have not contributed to the discussion of their choices yet. I'm counting one quick line as no contribution.

Date	Movie	DVDTalker	discussion thread
Sunday, October 4th	The Manitou (1978)	riotinmyskull	discussion thread
Monday, October 5th	High Tension (2003)	Larry C.	discussion thread
Wednesday, October 7th	Vampyr (1932)	Trevor	discussion thread
Saturday, October 10th	Baby Blues (2008)	LickTheABCs	discussion thread
Sunday, October 11th	Cemetary Man (1994)	Darkgod	discussion thread
Thursday, October 15th	Troll 2 (1990)	Mister Peepers	discussion thread
Friday, October 16th	Alligator (1980)	NoirFan	discussion thread
Monday, October 19th	Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968)	takingchase	discussion thread
Tuesday, October 20th	Dawn of the Dead (1978)	takingchase	discussion thread
Thursday, October 22nd	Ravenous (1999)	Larry C.	discussion thread
Monday, October 26th	An American Werewolf in London (1981)	Chad	discussion thread

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I dispute my Troll 2 entry on your list as I made the first reply.

Trevor

As I stated in my post, I was also listing contributions that were 'light' (to be generous) like by own non-contribution to the Vampyr thread.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

What a dick move.

I stated there was a 3rd Troll movie. That's heavy duty, man.

I was just honestly surprised that so many people hadn't seen it but I guess it's just because I'm old.

Trevor

I was totally confused by this, so looked around a bit.

I think I figured it out. People will never believe totals that add up to more than 15 hours per day. They can see that once or twice a month, but not two days in a row, and certainly not averaging that for 28 straight days. Anything more than 8 hours a day will probably never be believed. I'm not making a personal judgement, just a generalization.

Trevor

I'm the of the forum.

I must be older, as I remember being old enough to know better than to see it in the theater.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

On one hand I don't believe it yet on another I do. Two years ago there was a few of us, myself included, that went crazy. I remember not going to sleep until 11 or 12 and waking up around 3-4 and watching stuff before work, during work, and after work. Weekends were all day. If I was in a car, I had my Zune with me so I could watch on the go.

I also had a summer or two where my wife and kids went on vacation and I had a couple easy classes and a part time job on campus. I only did two things at home, exercise for an hour a day and watch movies. Weekends were all day movie marathons from around 7am until around midnight, minus an hour for exercise. I managed to get my unwatched pile from around 500 to 150 or so.

So while it can be done, there's usually a bunch of stuff that gets put off until November 1st and that isn't fun to deal with. It's all about priorities.

Troll 2 is a classic film. If it wasn't a cinema wonder, it wouldn't have earned a part 3.

Trevor

quote from last yearthis year's listCongratulations to Russell for meeting his goal this year!!

asianxcore

Crud. I have 3 days to hit 40

My original goal was 100, but then life got in the way

DRG

As October nears the end, I would like to offer up the following ideas for next year's Expanded Checklist/Bingo Card/etc. These are suggested additions, deletions, and alterations I feel could improve the checklist; followed by my rationale for each. Just my opinions, so feel free to disagree with them at will.

Suggested categories to add:

Watch a film from the following studios:
--- Universal - Monsters Era (as defined here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_monsters)
--- Hammer or Amicus
--- American International Pictures (AIP)
--- Full Moon/Empire/Charles Band
--- Troma
Studios that were known for horror output and had a lot of it in their respective eras. I wasn't 100% sure about including Troma here, but I figured if I didn't suggest it someone else would.

Watch a film directed by:
--- John Carpenter
--- George A. Romero
--- Wes Craven
--- Tobe Hooper
--- Dario Argento
I purposely went for 'horror superstar' directors with 1) more than ten horror films to their credit, and 2) at least one classic under their belt. I considered guys like Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, and James Whale but I worried they each didn't have enough horror directing credits (all seemed to have 5 or fewer) to warrant a box to themselves. Am I missing anyone?

--- Based on a work by Stephen King
Rationale: There are over 100 adaptations of King's stories, according to IMDB. Even if you eliminate the non-horror and the rare shorts, there are still a lot of choices. Not every adaptation is a classic, but there are plenty of great ones to choose from.

Suggested categories to cut:

--- Invisible Man - Rationale: Too small a subgenre to warrant its own category IMO... only 3 of the Universal series could even be considered horror, and even with the two Hollow Man movies and the 'Abbott & Costello Meets...' movies I can't even come up with ten invisible man horror films. Too many of the invisible man movies are non-horror, like the John Carpenter/Chevy Chase snoozefest. If anything, swap it out for the Phantom... at least there are enough variations of that character to make it interesting (the musical, Phantom of the Paradise, the Robert Englund version, etc.)

--- directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis or Uwe Boll or Ulli Lommel - Rationale: The bad movie fix is already covered by the MST3K category. And if we're going to celebrate directors, why not celebrate decent ones?

--- Criterion version film - Rationale: Admittedly there are a few great horror films in the Criterion list, but the horror choices still seem a bit limited and many of those are out-of-print, to boot.

Suggested categories to change:

--- based on a video game -
change to
--- based on a video game OR comic book/graphic novel -
Rationale: There are only about ten choices as far as video games go, and only about half of those are any good. Expanding the category to include comics widens the choices so you can include things like Blade, 30 Days of Night, Tales from the Crypt, etc.

--- with the words "Living Dead" in the title -
change to
--- with the words "Living Dead" OR "of the Dead" in the title -
Rationale: Allows the rest of Romero's Dead films to be included, as well as other things like 'Shaun of the Dead' and so on.

--- called "Return of ..." -
AND
--- called "Revenge of ..." -
change to
--- called "Return of ..." OR "Revenge of ..." -
Rationale: Separately these categories just feel excessive, since they sort of work on the same principle.

--- called "Attack of ..." -
change to
--- called "House of/on/by ..." -
Rationale: 'Attack of' selections tend to skew more towards sci-fi than horror, and seem too confined to the 50s/60s era. On the other hand there seem to be a lot of horror selections that start with 'House' and some two-letter word, and the choices cross several eras and subgenres.

Any thoughts?

Numes

^I like it all, especially the Stephen King idea, the directors, and the "of the Dead" change.

Trevor

^^ I like it all, with some slight changes maybe, and additional changes too.

I could have sworn we had or used to have a director subcategory.

Can't let my OCD get wrapped up in thinking about the checklist now, but great discussion for the next 11 months to help fill the void.

Speaking of that void, i think we should have two horror challenges per year.....

Chad

^^^ I like them also ...especially the video game revision.

Although I'd add Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava to the directors subcategory. Both easily have more than ten horror films and a few classics under their belts.

And maybe an and/or option where we could choose to skip one option on the list and instead do two in the same category of your choice.

Anyway, don't forget I'll post a feedback thread after the results are tabulated and posted, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss in further detail. Blah!

Hey, don't blame the list creator guy - just did a search for 'Halloween' on instantwatcher.com and it popped up. Maybe a disclaimer is in order?

SethDLH

I like those changes as well. I think the directors section should definitely be included maybe add in Mario Bava or Lucio Fulci as well.

takingchase

My apologies, like I said earlier this week has been insanely busy which is when all my choices fell on. I haven't even had time to really post in this thread let alone the discussion forums. I'll head over now and add my two cents.

jmsmath

I like this idea. There's so much more I wanted/planned to watch, but not enough time.

cysiam

It takes me a year just to re-charge my batteries after one of these.

llandros

I like all the ideas stated but would add "Return to ..." with this category as well.

clckworang

I agree with many of the suggested revisions to the optional checklist.

Suggestions I particularly liked were changes for the titles and the inclusion of "of the Dead." The video game category really needs to be revised; a very generous number was given as to the number of decent horror video game adaptations. I also think the Invisible Man story is too limiting as well, and many invisibility films are not horror at all.

I'm not sure about the director idea. I like it in theory, but I've seen some of the big directors' films so many times that it's nice to be able to explore other filmmakers. Plus, we start making a list of directors and when will we stop ourselves. There are too many directors that could be put in there. Your removal of the Herschell Gordon Lewis, Uwe Boll, Ulli Lommel item from the checklist could backfire. I would argue that Lewis would deserve to have a spot among other directors. He might make "bad" movies, but he's a very important horror director. I also wouldn't cry if we made changes or removed the actor category.

A couple other quick things I wasn't as sold on ... the studio thing would be a pain. I like the idea behind it, but I don't want to be worrying about what studio produced a movie.

What a love about the checklist is that it forces you to dabble in different things you might not be as inclined toward. It makes someone who only watches modern day films give something from other decades a try. It makes someone like me who isn't as interested in Frankenstein, werewolves or mummies take a little detour. I like the freedom in completing the checklist however you see fit. If we start adding a bunch of directors, it would feel more like we're steering people toward certain movies.

Another possible change: removal of the space category. Too many fall into the sci-fi category. It's often a very gray area. Or maybe that's the solution! Alter the category to be takes place in space or sci-fi. That would allow the inclusion of a movie like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Thing.

Anyway, I just wanted to get these thoughts down now before I forget, but we'll have time to think and discuss after the challenge. If I remember correctly, we had a brief period after the challenge last year to get our lists together before voting and collect our thoughts. There will definitely be more discussion over this!

clckworang

That's not a bad idea!

Oh, and to backtrack, let's definitely NOT replace the Invisible Man with the Phantom.

Gobear

I changed "Attack of " to "Curse of " because there are many more of the latter than the former.


BTW, Carriers is a very good film, but freaking brutal to watch. What, or who, would you sacrifice to save yourself from a global plague?

I can't believe it didn't get proper distribution; even though its distributor, Paramount Vantage, went under, some other company should have picked it up. It's got Chris Meloni from Law and Order: SVU and Chris Pine from the new Star Trek, so there should have been some interest.

Chad

So it looks I've still got 3 wild cards left to burn through. Any recommendations for some good Halloween specials up on YouTube or wherever?

Trevor

Both of those are already allowed as horror.