I see your point about starting and ending on a bad note Chad, and like the idea of starting a day early on the weekend.

^^Starting a day early works for me. It'll give me more time to work in all the new stuff I've lined up as well as focus on the Universal horror titles this year. It also takes a bit of the sting out of only having *4* Saturdays and Sundays this year. Last year there were *5* each.

I'm all for starting a day early to get us off on a strong note. Would we start evening of the Saturday or midnight Saturday going into Sunday?

^ Midnight Saturday (technically Sunday).

Weekends are when I have the most time to watch things so I'll say yes to the extra day. It could be considered an official "warm-up" day to the 2012 Horror Challenge (I'm in Olympic mode).

I don't have a problem either way. I like the idea of an extra day on Sunday, I think it would give us a great boost of excitement, but if there are a lot of hard core objections it wouldn't bother me to wait until Monday. I do think everybody should throw in their two cents worth without doing a poll. Explaining our reasons for supporting or objecting will help Chad to sort this out.

I'm all in favor of starting a day early. Mondays are hard enough. Sitting through work all day, chomping at the bit to get the hell out of there to get started....I'm already breaking into a cold sweat just thinking about it.

im down for a bonus day....i wont be able to be able to watch anything sadly but I will be doing a Eastern State Pen tour and going to pennhurst Asylum's haunted house that day should count for something!

As is usually the case, I'm with Trevor on this one; however, as I'm a purist at heart, I'd rather keep it for October ONLY--start at midnight on October 1st and end at midnight on November 1st. But I fully understand the reasons that everyone has espoused for starting early so far. Either way, it doesn't matter to me, as I'll probably still keep my strict start and stop times.

This does bring up the question, however, as to whether there would be an extra day in the subset and theme night lists. My feelings are that if September 30th is added as a bonus day, it should be just that: a bonus day, without any kind of strings attached to any list (except for the checklist, of course). I would be more than happy with that scenario.

Since we're on the subject of the checklist, I would like to see the three optional decades from last year (1890s, 1900s, 1910s) rolled into the 1920s one and just have one item, perhaps called "Silent Horror: 1890-1929" or something along those lines. I'm also for taking out the "Silent Film" item, as it's redundant when there's a decade item from that era.

As far as the 3D checklist item goes, the more I think about it, the more I'm in favor of it. At first I wasn't fond of the idea, as there is a very limited selection of 3D movies from which to choose, but as I started ticking off a mental list, I thought of two or three that I wouldn't mind seeing again. I say go for it.

I loved the composer checklist item last year; maybe it could be repeated this year with Howard Shore, Pino Donaggio, Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herrmann, or even Goblin.

I'd also be totally down for adding a "K-Horror" item alongside the "J-Horror" item (any excuse for watching A Tale of Two Sisters again is worth it).

All in all, Chad, I think that you do a bang-up job every year...and if you decided to not change a thing, I'd still be geared to go this year. Thanks for all the time and hard work that you put in for this challenge. We may not tell you enough, but we DO appreciate it.

I'm fine with an extra day, as long as it's Criterion-only.

I'm fine with an extra day... I start my Halloween season on Labor Day anyway.

Starting a day early would feel off to me, part of the fun is to cram as many horror movies as I can into the month of October. "I watched 116 horror movies in the month of October, and a day in September" doesn't seem to have the same kind of bragging rights. Even if last day of September was allowed I do not think I would count that in my tally. I get that it's in the spirit of fun, but don't want to jump the gun.

Random Theme Night / Checklist Suggestions

Here are some theme night ideas (if those are not yet finalized): horror movie remakes (i.e. Blob '88, Savini's NOTLD), H.P. Lovecrat based (i.e. From Beyond, Dagon, In the Mouth of Madness), buried undergroud (subterranean horror i.e. Descent, Boogens, My Bloody Valentine), medical horror (in honor of Chad's surgery i.e. Anatomy, Hands of Orloff, Dr Giggles, Re-Animator, The Dentist, even Frankenstein); campfire stories (based on a campground i.e. F13s, Cabin Fevers, Madmad, Camp Bloods).

October 7th is the anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's death so if he is featured as a theme night or if "based on a book" is used then that might be a good occassion.

On checklist, I want to emphasize deleting all the checklist items based on the name alone (for example "revenge of...," "attack of..."); those are clever cliches to include but including them every year makes me revisie the same pool of films instead of encouraging diversity.

For fun, it might be interesting to include a "wild card" checklist item where users can specify whatever item they want to include. It might be interesting to see what people come up with and those ideas that stand out could be given consideration for formal checklist inclusion next year.
I support this, there isn't a lot of horror content in the 1890s, 1900s, and 1910s anyway; good suggestion! Historical value is important but I can only watch Einstein's Frankenstein on YouTube so often.

All this talk about starting early has me excited. I think I'll begin this weekend!

Seriously, I'm not a huge fan of the extra day but if that's what everyone wants, it doesn't bother me. Just so long as the thread title is appropriately labled "Annual October (and a day in September) Horror Movie (and TV if you want to) Challenge"

This conversation has definitely gotten me excited!

I'm also not excited about starting a day early, as I just wouldn't feel right starting before October had officially began.

Also, am I the only one not in favor of the "10 different ways someone was killed" checklist item? Unless I'm missing something, it seems like it would just be filler, as some movies on their own would fill it out.

However, I'm definitely excited to see what'll be on the checklist this year!

Not a huge deal to me either way, but if I had to choose, I'd say to start on 10/1/12.

I like your theme night suggestions, Chad. Going to be tough for me to fill out a full checklist or reach 100 (reaching 50 movies is going to be quite difficult), but definitely looking forward to checking out some new horror tiles (several classics I need to catch up on) and re-watching some favorites.

I don't have a problem with combining 1890-1919 into one checklist item, but I think the 1920's should be kept as their own decade.

This would be perfect then:



There's also Campfire Tales, but it's not one I'm familiar with.

i actually set up my que in netflix for the challenge and went thru my collection and turned all the unwatched horror titles sideways so i spend less time searching thru my movies and more time watching them

I'm not that amped about the kill list either, but I've never even come close to finishing any of the checklists, so it's not a big deal for me either way.

I just liked doing a more open one rather than:

Find someone killed with a chainsaw
find someone killed with a fish
find someone killed with a computer

At least when it's open, there's an easier time in choosing movies. That's how I was looking at it.

Several films in which people are killed by fish come to mind, but has anyone ever been killed with a fish?

Someone serves that poisoned puffer fish for a meal?

Someone holding a fish taco while being murdered... nothing springs to mind.

I'm sure there's been someone stabbed by a killer with a swordfish

That would still be by fish, like by chainsaw. It would need to be someone currently eating fish or with fish on their person.