Doc Moonlight

I favor the addition of influential directors to the checklist. People like James Whale, Todd Browning, Val Lewton, Roger Corman, Terrence Fisher really helped to shape the horror film as we know it and I think it's only proper to pay homage to them.


I'd also favor adding the major horror studios to the checklist: Ufa, Universal, Hammer, AIP, the Hammer Imitators (Amicus, Tigon, etc.), New Line.

Numes

Couldn't have said it better. I wasn't sure how it would work at first, but after the first couple discussion threads, I realized how perfect it was.

caligulathegod

I don't think the movie with "video game based upon it" is any more broad than a "movie made in the 70s," or, "Vampire Movie." No category should steer anyone to something where only a handful of movies qualify, or if it does then it should rotate and be different every year. It allows some creativity and freshens up some stale categories. We shouldn't be afraid to remove some and put them back in upcoming years. I would just as soon drop it, myself, and add something new.

Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman and the Mummy are the ones I'd consider the 4 Horsemen of Horror. Invisible Man is entirely a Sci-Fi concept so I vote to lose it. We don't have a "Giant" category. That's a Sci-Fi concept, but only as far as the setup. After that, giant bugs or whatever are meant to be scary.

I wouldn't remove the pre-20s categories, as much as put an asterisk by them. They can be honored, but this is ostensibly a feature challenge and those aren't features. The whole reason for wild cards was so we didn't have to have them dedicated to Charlie Brown. I don't want to have to watch the same handful of flicks every year for the sake of an arbitrary checklist, but I'd like the chance to complete a checklist.

Which brings me to the directors. Perhaps we can alternate every year and have next year a director's category in place of the actor's category and then the following year go back to actors instead of directors. That way it keeps it somewhat fresh and unique from year to year. I think I oppose just glomming on new categories every year with no removal of old ones. Obviously, the checklist is optional, but for those that follow it, it should never be dominant or unwieldy. There's already about 75 categories. Even though titles can be used more than once, Something bothers me aesthetically about having more categories than the stated goal (100) of the challenge, which will happen if we don't allow cuts. 75 is a nice number.

Oh, something else. I'm sure it has been discussed in earlier threads, but it seems to me to be exceedingly rare a film is released with an actual by-the-book "X" or NC-17 rating. Most films that would have those tend to not apply them and just go unrated. Something like Antichrist would have obviously been one of those, but it is going out unrated. I would vote to have those categories condensed into one NC-17/"X" level "unrated" category.

I'm not for making the checklist easier, just making it sane.

Doc Moonlight

The thing is, though, you can knock off four or five checklist categories with one title. FRANKENSTEIN or BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN gets you Frankenstein, Boris Karloff, Universal, James Whale. I don't see the expansion of the checklist as making it harder, I see it as encouraging you to think about the interconnecting relationships of great horror films.

As for directors, c'mon we've got a checklist item for Uwe Boll, but not for Val Lewton? How f'ed is that?

As for the very early films, I favor allowing them without using a wild card even though they are very short because at the time they were released, they were considered valid features.

Trevor

Technically, you can do the current checklist by watching only 34 titles. Maybe fewer, but that's what I worked it down to once.

On the film decades and the ratings, my feelings are that they should all stay. They seem like all or nothing categories for me. With the decades, the purpose is to explore all of film history. Sure, the choices are limited for those first 4 decades, but people keep finding new ones each year. And besides, you can satisfy all 4 decades in about 10 minutes total. If you're passionate enough to complete a checklist, I don't think a total of 10 minutes should bother you too much. And you don't have to 'waste' wildcards on them. Checklist items can be marked off by watching anything, whether it counts as a number in your total or not.

Similar feelings about the ratings. Yes, there are few 'pure' X or NC-17 films, but the purpose of the checklist is to do 'one of everything possible'. I believe there are at least 6 choices to fit each category, so it's not like you have to watch the same film every year to satisfy a category.

To me, the most limiting category each year has been Lon Chaney Sr. He only did a few horror films that are available on disc, and I think I've used the same film every year for his slot.

And you're right caligula, I knew I was forgetting one of the standards. The Mummy should be the '4th', with the Invisible Man 5th, or not at all as some feel.

clckworang

Well, technically the checklist item is for Uwe Boll or Herschell Gordon Lewis. And the reason there isn't a director slot for Val Lewton is because Val Lewton wasn't a director.

ParadiseVendors

What are the 6 for G rated. Or even 3? I searched around a lot online and could only find 1 G-Rated horror movie, and had little interest in watching it again. That was the one category I really hated for that reason. But with that said I probably won't even attempt the checklist again. I prefer to just watch stuff I want to watch, and a few of the categories are just too restrictive. (And with that said, I'm sure that once the challenge starts up again, I will change my mind and try to finish it cause I know it's there).

islandclaws

The Haunting was G, right?

Trevor

Looking through just page one of the list thread's checklists, I find:

My Teacher Ate My Homework
Creature From the Black Lagoon
The Worst Witch
The Haunting (1963)
The Time Machine
Dracula

A couple of these were not G in the United States, so either our participants were guessing, fudging, or have national health care.

But I'm pretty sure there are dozens of films that could be termed horror that were either initially rated G, or resubmitted after the current mpaa rating system and classified G. Dr. Jeykll and Mr Hyde is one of the later.

clckworang

Qualifying G rated titles

The Haunting (1963)
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
War of the Worlds (1953)
Creature From the Black Lagoon
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

I'm sure there are a few more. I'll do some investigating.

clckworang

Some more qualifying titles

Godzilla vs. Gigan
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
The War of the Gargantuas
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Destroy All Monsters
Killers From Space
Curse of the Blood Ghouls
The Blood Beast Terror
The Devil Rides Out
The Duxorcist (short)
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
The Legend of Boggy Creek
The Legend of McCullough's Mountain
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (short)
The Lost Continent
The Monster That Challenged the World
The Night of the Living Duck (short)
The Raven (1963)
The Snow Creature
The Vengeance of She

You must not have investigated too much. I found all of these by looking up all G-rated films on IMDB (that's the same way I found X-rated films). It took me 90 minutes to browse through all of them and click on titles that I thought were possibilities. I'll bet some titles that IMDB didn't include as horror, AllMovie might classify as horror. I also feel confident that some that aren't strictly classified as horror would probably get passes from everyone based on subject matter (witches, ghosts, etc.).

Trevor

Awesome work clckworang (what the heck does that mean anyway?)!

Your inclusion of shorts gives me the idea to complete the checklist next year in three or so hours.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

What about for actors/actresses/directors, have one that was prominent in each decade, starting with the 30s?

Doc Moonlight

You're right. But my point stands If we're going to have checklist items for bad filmakers (encompassing directors and producers) why shouldn't we have some for good and influential ones?

SanityRemoved

The G Rating was much broader in scope in the past than it is today. Many of the G rated films previously listed would obtain a higher rating if presented to the ratings board today. The Haunting (1963) is a good example with a rating of G issued in 1972 when body counts of the Vietnam War greeted the public at dinner time and stomach distress bags being issued at theaters for Mark Of The Devil.

Perception of what the ratings are has varied considerably, such as the GP rating, the majority of movie goers believed it stood for General Public resulting in the change to PG. While it is supposed to be a guide, it is also used as a marketing tool. Many teens would not even consider attending a film that is rated G.

clckworang

It's a shortened version of Clockwork Orange. It was my first email address and it has just sort of stuck with me.

There's only one checklist item requiring a bad director (it doesn't encompass producers at all), and I think that's fair enough on the optional checklist because it forces people to have to watch a "bad" horror movie.

Presumably, most people would be more inclined to watch a good horror movie by a good director. So I don't see the point in requiring someone to watch one. Truly bad horror movies are a staple of the genre, though, and should be a single requirement on the checklist. Using those two particular directors for one checklist item ensures that a "bad" horror movie is watched to fulfill the checklist. I don't really know a more effective way to do that.

I use bad in quotes because I actually really enjoy Herschell Gordon Lewis films.

caligulathegod

As long as everyone else gets to be OCD, here's where mine kicks in. I refuse to consider pre-1968 films to have any rating at all. Re-rating an old film strikes me as revisionism as they were not made with the purpose of being "rated". All films, until the mid to late 60s when the Code was being actively challenged, were intended to be for general audiences. It's kind of like when they do retroactive National Championships for years prior to the AP rankings. There's something not quite legitimate about them. I also have a hard time counting movies that were originally rated X then were recut for actual release as an R or released as unrated. I'd have no problem counting them in a "general" category (that is, "would have/should have been X"), but if I put a checkmark by it as "X" or "NC-17", then it had better actually have been in a theater with that rating attached to it. It should have had X on the poster and (I can't remember the actual color) a "red band-type" leader that said "This film has been rated 'NC-17' by the MPAA" like they do with all the other ratings. Not that I'm really being that specific, but you know what I mean. It needs to be proven to have actually been released as that and not just threatened with that rating.

As far as the decade thing, the original checklist didn't include pre-20s films. I actually amended my list the first year to include 10s since I happened to have Edison's Frankenstein. So I don't want to remove them from the checklist. I just want it honorary, as respect for early cinema. They weren't features even at the time. They were attractions or whatever. It isn't until they actually started telling stories they became actual "features".

Also, back to the OCD, even though the same movie can count for multiple categories, the hard core of us prefer to only use one title per check (or should, anyway). I try (but don't always succeed) to do so. I just have a fear of taking what is a fun diversion intended to insure the breadth of genre viewing and making it so overwhelming that only the hardcore even attempt it. Plus, I'd like to keep it fresh and have it encourage slightly different goals every year. Innovation can be fun, for its own sake.

I also agree with removing or perhaps combining Lon Chaney Sr with Lon Chaney Jr. Despite Lon Sr's status as a Horror Icon, that is actually an uninformed view of the man. He actually at the time was known more as an extreme character actor than as a Horror actor. I'm reluctant to even call Hunchback of Notre Dame a horror movie, even though he plays a grotesque. Forry Ackerman oversold his appearance in Phantom and Hunchback to make him look like a Horror actor.

Trevor

I definitely don't think that anyone should watch the R rated cut of a film that was initially rated as X/NC-17, and count it as X/NC-17. You have to watch the cut that was rated whatever you're filling in on the checklist.
It should still be fun, as it's all up to the individual to do with it what they will. Some people ignore it, some fill it in but don't watch anything just for it, some finish it in a week and wish it was larger. But hopefully, all of us who completed it and those who only filled in a couple blanks still had fun with it. It is only a burden if you choose to feel that way about it. If we tone it down and make it so that most people complete it, then we'll have dozens wishing it was larger. I think it's about right that only a very small percentage of people try to complete it. If it was something that most people did, then it would sort of defeat the purpose of it, imo.

There's no way to completely please everyone of course. But I do agree that keeping it fresh and innovative would be a good thing.
I think it was originally combined, but I separated them in a moment of weakness. I'll combine them if there are no objections.

Darth Maher

This is why I don't do the checklist. My head hurts from reading this thread.

Cardsfan111

I've never been a "checklist guy" - to me, I only have so much valuable time to watch horror movies during the month, so I don't want to spend it checking the release dates, ratings, etc of films. I'm all for those who want to do it, but I must admit, my favorite suggestion from the last couple of years was when it was suggested to put the checklist under a spoiler tag so as not to clutter up/lengthen the list thread.

caligulathegod

I wasn't suggesting watching the R versions. As Horror fans, we know certain movies were originally rated X and then they were cut for actual release as R films or released as is but Unrated. I don't consider those films as X because they didn't actually accept that rating. And there can't be more than a baker's dozen films that were ever released with an NC-17 rating, let alone Horror films.

That's basically why I'd just as soon keep it about the same size as it is now. If we just keep adding to it then it will get so big that no one will try it. Keep it reasonable and it will get more participation. I've mentioned it before that I actually don't do the checklist but check it the last week to see if my random movie choices have breadth. Anyway, it's just feedback and brainstorming on how to improve or tweak the list.

Darkgod

Horror film club
I say chad picks the first couple movies. Then and only then, people who participate in those reviews get to pic a future movie.
Horror film challenge
I supported it in the past, and know gonna open a can of worms but I say no tv at all. No Moh, fear itself unless using a wildcard. I know they are suposed to be films but they are still television shows IMO.

Cool Ghoul

I agree, I kind of see them as tv shows as well.

Darth Maher

^^ I agree too. What's the difference between watching MOH and, say, an episode of "Tales from the Darkside?"

Trevor

I'd agree. We need to do something to prevent a repeat of the Criterion Club problems.
Just curious, but why does it bother people enough to mention it? Are you upset that people are getting 'easy' numbers? There are tons of films that are similar lengths or shorter that count.

I guess I see wanting everything to be a 'pure film', but if you feel that way then you should be against all wildcards and direct-to-video movies as well.

Personally, I would have been okay with not allowing them from the beginning, but now that they've been accepted for several years, and people have bought them specifically for the Challenge, they should remain in play.

But then again, I also think that all TV should be allowed and scored similarly to the Sci-Fi Challenges, or even Holiday Challenges.