Undeadcow

Congratulations to your son for his wedding; be sure to post some photos here. Thinking of my (12 year old) son getting married sound exciting but also horrifying enough. Maybe there will be a Numbercruncher Jr Jr in the near future.

JOE29

Yes, but I haven't turned away from the physical media. And when the day comes when it is gone completely, which will happen, I'll just have to keep watching what I already have and do the best I can with that. I'm not saying that I won't watch streaming content. Because I do. But as far as collecting . It will be finished.

numbercrunch

Thanks. Ill be sure to post some pics. Wedding is in Hawaii, so maybe i can sneak in a film or two that week

clckworang

I had to make a drive over near some Barnes and Noble stores and impulsively decided to go in. One of the stores had a small display for the 50% off Arrow sale. Since I have a B&N credit card that gives me a little extra discount, I decided to do some more challenge prep and picked up the UHDs of Dark Water, Basket Case, Mute Witness and Torso. Excited to see Mute Witness again. I remember buying that as a blind buy way back in the VHS days.

As far as physical media talk, I found it interesting to see young teens at each store excitedly going through the vinyl section. Physical media isn't completely dead; it has just shifted some for now. I think there has started to be a modest reappraisal of movies on physical media, though.

Undeadcow

For a while now I've been buying 'digital' content; I understand the 'collector mentality' and the benefit of having something of weigh and substance (maybe too well because I don't often have space for the stuff I do have).
Digital has been handy since I have quick access to everything.
I've also found that some small studio films end up going straight to digital alone rather than getting a physical release so I like that some films that might be readily have an outlet for being released or made at all have digital.
Sometimes digital stuff is 'cheaper.'
I know the audience here is a tough sell on digital but it's not without merit, even if maybe one day the 'digital' place will purge my collection and I'll be left empty handed.

Chad

History of the trope
Courtesy of TVTropes.


Dangerous Key Fumble

Trevor

Been kind of a crazy year for me. Had a major plumbing issue that necessitated moving my horror collection to storage and re-finishing all our flooring. So everything I would normally want front and center for next month is pretty much inaccessible now.

And then I got laid off after 38 years, so my usual purchasing of all the subset films and going crazy in all horror sales is not happening.

So maybe I’ll have more time to participate this year, but will likely be mostly streaming and not 100% theme compliant as usual. It sucks having all my media in storage. slowly fixing up the house and trying to make it look less like a hoarder’s domain, but it’s going to take at least a couple more months.

Undeadcow

This is a bummer. May you find some escape/relief in horror movies this year. You have a good attitude and I believe that will go a long way in your rebound - feast or famine, there will be bad times and there will be good times. Best wishes in today's hardship.

SterlingBen

38 years is almost my whole life, hope everything turns out good for you Trevor.


Moving isn’t going a smoothly as I was hoping, I think I was making plans/goals as if I was still in my 20s…

Did pick up this year’s Punkin though! Also in moving I have unearthed so many beers I have squirreled away that I think this needs to be a clean out year, things I’ve missed, beers that have been…. aged… half a decade. Ready to drink something weird.

On a physical media note, it took 12 boxes just to pack my “to watch” shelves. I shudder to think how many the movie room will take…

WillieMLF

Sorry to hear about all this hardship Trevor. When it rains it pours, and hopefully you can come out on the other side somewhat better. We tend to have major plumbing issues every other year with the polybutylene plumbing. The last one necessitated a bathroom remodel, which ended up not being covered by insurance due to other problems there.

Spiderbite

38 years is a long time to be at a job and that sucks to get laid off, especially since I assume you were planning to retire with them.

I have been at the same company for 23.5 years and have probably 15 more to go before I can possibly retire. I would like to retire with my company and do not want to even think about looking for a different job or place to work for. My son just graduated college, and I have been helping him look for entry level type jobs and it is giving me anxiety and flashbacks to when I was doing that so many years ago once I got out of college. It really isn't fun unless you have some sort of golden path you somehow get to take (or inherit money...which I did not).

Anyhoo...just saw that Chad has got the "Reviews & Recommendations" section's threads going. That is when you really know it is about to be on!!!!

Hope we have some good discussion this year about the subset movies and any others for that matter. For those that tend to keep quiet and just passively watch and list, I would encourage you to participate in those threads. It really makes it more fun and some of the various criticism from posters here have helped me appreciate (or hate) some movies that I might now have.

Indy24LA

I'm truly sorry to hear this. I was in the same boat last year (laid off after 20 years) and definitely used the challenge for some escapism. I finally found another (better) job about 6 months ago, so hopefully things will work out for you too.

Gobear

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, Trevor. Job loss is one of the most traumatic experiemces one can endure.I've been there, and it sucks mightily. Luckily, the DC area is vibrant and we have low unemployment so you should be able to find a new gig. Apply for state unemployment benefits immediately because they take a while to process. If you need money right now, look for temp-to-hire jobs. That's how I found my current career as a federal contractor.

Hopefully watching some gooey monster movies will be a good outlet for youi.

Surfinhank

Hate hearing stories like that, sorry Trevor. But keep a positive attitude, and adding to Gobear's advice be sure to reach out to friends and family for possible contacts. One of my best jobs came from a friend's recommendation. But in the meantime.... fill your time with celluloid horror!!

clckworang

So sorry to hear about the job, Trevor. That's really rough. I've been there a time or two. The challenge can be a nice escape during those times.

I'm slowly starting my challenge prep. I received my Hamilton Book order today, so I need to get everything integrated into the overall collection and start flagging the horror titles. My subwoofer finally bit the dust. I ordered a replacement amp. It should be here this week. The company assured me it was an easy replacement. I haven't done much work with audio equipment, so I hope that turns out to be true.

I'm also still debating ordering a couple more subset films. I've usually already done that at this point but have been stalling for some reason this year.

shadokitty

Adding my well wishes to everything Trevor. Hopefully the challenge will help to at least temporarily get your mind off of things.

Sterror

For those long timers who been participating ever look back and see how drastic things have changed since your first challenge?

im pretty sure i was still doing weekly sales at circuit city and Best Buy for their 5$ deals and relying on cons for rare stuff and bootlegs.
Netflix and later Redbox hoping to get some titles in. Staying up and operating on 3/4 hours a day.

now x amount of years returning my collection of 1000s that were sold is now slowly growing at about 100 titles. Best Buy and CC are in the past and I tend to hope I can find weekly releases at Walmart. ….netflix is gone….Redbox is gone.

i have almost any movie imaginable at my fingertips between my streaming services and my plex. But doesn’t feel the same.

im excited to return as i took a looooong break on horror after having kids (despite trying a few times to join the challenges)

im really excited to have a place to talk horror for a few weeks
-Terrycloth

orlmac

Welcome Sterror, we're glad you could finally make it in! We have less than a week to go so the excitement is in the air. If you haven't look at the challenge checklist yet give it a look. It can be a lot of fun to do and Chad spends a tremendous amount of time on it each year changing things up. Of course, the daily subset and themes are the heart of this challenge so make sure you look at them and add your thoughts on the movies each day. We have a great month coming up and we're glad you're on board!

Sterror

I think my first challenge here was year 2/3 of the challenge. Just had to make a new account after a multi year break. And glad to see a lot of the same faces and challenge still going

Undeadcow

Welcome back Terrycloth!
I miss going to (any) movie rental place and picking out some random horror stuff to watch; for a while and they had some cool movie rental places with VHS horror movies and oddities - now there is legit no place to rent physical media or digital rentals have a lot of 'blind spots' in small scale vintage horror.
Now I've started 'following' some rogue Youtube channels in advance of the challenge, there are some that have posted randomly weird horror films and last year I enjoyed stumbling on stuff like Demons of Ludlow (horrible camp with a piano), Satan Place: A Soap Opera From Hell (charmingly dated with some fun twists), Murderlust (well acted thriller), The Horrible Sexy Vampire (amusingly odd, I could not look away), Alien Space Avengers (weird mix of genres), or Deathmoon (poorly paced made for tv).
RIP Circuit City (I'm surprised maybe Hastings is still around)
Even if things change, horror never dies.

Gobear

Those were the days. Slide over to Blockbuster. grab a couple of movies and some candy, that's your Friday night covered.

Sterror

One of my favorite things in looking forward to is what undead touched on and looking thru all the lists and find new horror from others recommendation.

shadokitty

Welcome back Terrycloth. I remember my first couple of years I relied almost exclusively on DVDs due to not having cable and streaming wasn't such a big thing back then. So I was also lucky to maybe get one movie a day in.

Undeadcow

Another things I enjoy about this challenge, which is newer to me but may be more limited this year, is using these movie theater subscription plans to the maximum. It's amusing to be able to go to three theatrical showings each week for only about $20 a month and that has allowed me to chase whatever horror movies at in cinema without worrying too much about researching the best films to spend limited ticket cash on, it reminds me of sneaking into movies as a kid but is somehow legal. Next week I'm going to randomly go to Ma Da: The Drowned Spirit (apparently a Vietnamese psychological horror about a vengeful river ghost) and Azareal (an action horror about a world were no one speaks). Last year I suffered through Hayride to Hell and It Lives Inside but ended up enjoying Soul Mates; and probably wouldn't have gone to any of them at even $7 a ticket.

WillieMLF

Man, those titles are gold, but I'm sure I would be utterly disappointed in all of them, especially Alien Space Avengers.

I lurked the challenge a few years before I officially joined. It was fun to pour over all the lists compiling a mega list to go through during the rest of the year. I was always amused about the whole mountain of discussion around Spider-Man and the rationale behind a personal horror tag. There was one guy getting called out for watching more movies than were physically possible to fit in a day. Killer Tongue was the movie that pushed me out of spectator mode. Everyone had just a universally negative thing to say, and everyone just piled on. I can't believe it's still not out on disk.

I've been going through some horror lists online and plotting my attack for this year. Seems like Chad has already been proactive for a few of these for the theme night picks. Anyone seen Abigail? Noticed it was on the comedy crossover listing early on. Oh, it is the crossover movie. I was under the impression All My Friends Are Dead was chosen, but I also see that on the theme list, so moot question.