Welcome to Shocktober 2014

(Note: A blog version without the trailers attached is available right here.)

October is finally here, which means it's time for Shocktober, as well. I wait all year long for this, and I've spent way too many hours over the past few days researching the following list of movies. I'm stoked.

It's not on my list, but I'll probably end up watching Trick 'r Treat at some point.

Shocktober, for those who haven't participated in the past, is a daily challenge during the month of October to watch as many horror movies as possible. Although I've picked 31 movies, I'm not actually planning on watching a movie every single night. Some movies will get stuffed into marathons on weekends, while others will simply be pushed to another year.

More importantly, before you charge into the comments, know that Shocktober isn't about creating a definitive list of horror's best movies. "Where's Friday the 13th? Why don't you have Nightmare on Elm St.? I thought you loved Hellraiser!?" I've seen just about everything, and while some classics are part of the haul, there's only of those one per week. Feel free to make suggestions, and share your own lists below!

There's always next year.

Some of the movies are hitting theaters this month, and they've been appropriately slotted for the Friday of the weekend they're opening. Other movies are debuting through various on-demand services in October, and I've slotted them the first day they're available. Unfortunately, a few are are obscure, and not available on iTunes, Netflix, and other places where movies are one click away. You're on your own!

If you're looking for the best way to watch some of these movies, CanIStreamIt works like a charm for navigating digital services. There are even apps for phones and tablets to make the whole thing easier.

Some other programming notes that determined this year's lineup:

I'm tired of torture porn, which is why you don't see anything like it on here. It's boring. (One of the only movies that's managed to break that trend for me is the brutal and amazing Martyrs.)
Alien, Critters, Halloween, and Eraserhead are this year's classics to rewatch.
While I've tried to avoid movies exploitative of women (a trope the genre would be wise to stop using as a crutch to generate uncomfortable tension), it's hard to dodge in movies I haven't seen.
There's a bunch of found footage on here because, well, I really like found footage. Feel free to replace some of those movies with other ones I've dropped in here, if you dislike the style.
The movies cut from this list but were once part of it include Raze, House (the one by Nobuhiko Obayashi), Under the Skin, Oculus, Warm Bodies, The Tunnel, Bereavement, Making Contact, The Frogs, Galaxy of Terror, Deliver Us From Evil, Dark Woods, The Munches, Tusk, and the WNUF Halloween Special. Plenty of them seem like they would have been worthy!
Movies I've seen but considered part of the rewatch included Contracted, We Are What We Are, Maniac, The Silent House (the original), Rubber, Alien Abduction, The McPherson Tape, [rec], and BBC: Ghost Watch. All come highly recommended, especially [rec]. That movie's damn scary.

Throughout the month, I'll probably be writing some reviews of these movies. These will be published as premium written articles, unless I decide to get ambitious and try to do reviews in video format. That seems pretty unlikely. I'm also talking to Alex and Rorie about trying to do a few horror podcasts throughout the month to talk about our favorites. As usual, we'll also have a much more frequent schedule for Spookin' With Scoops, and I'm working on some other features to arrive throughout the month.

In any case, let's get going. With Alien: Isolation coming out next week, it seemed entirely appropriate to kick this year off with one of the greatest, if not the greatest, horror movie of all-time, Ridley Scott's Alien.

Happy Shocktober!

(Thanks to the amazing Giant Bomb user Cal Garrioch for the art at the top!)