Tuesday, November 02, 2010

October Challenge Post Mortem

I finished the October Challenge right before going on vacation this year. My vacation consisted of watching more horror movies with distant friends, far away from a computer. I'll get to the stuff I didn't write about during October in the next few days, but I thought I'd include a short post mortem.

I finished the Challenge having watched 37 movies that I had never seen before, a new personal best. Since I'm only counting first-time viewings, that'll have to stand as my bench mark. I did actually watch more than that. Some of the repeat viewings include:

Forbidden Planet
Kiss of the Vampire
From Beyond
Poltergeist

I've written about all of these before, so I don't see the need this month. The stuff that does count that I still need to review:

Stay
Dead Set
Ink
Solomon Kane
Human Lanterns
Sauna
maybe The Walking Dead if I decide it counts. Right now, it doesn't. I'll end up writing about it either way.

The best thing I saw this month was Dead Set, which does so many things I hate that I'm completely shocked at how much I liked it. It might be my favorite zombie thing of the last 20 years, maybe since the original Dawn of the Dead. I was similarly surprised by Frozen, which I've already reviewed.

The process has also demonstrated both the utility and drawbacks of Netflix's instant watch feature. Most of the stuff Netflix has for instant watch is the sort of stuff that used to populate the back-shelves of video stores, unloved and unwatched. I'm happy to see this stuff get a new lease on life, but, well, to be charitable, there's a reason this stuff was unloved. Still, there have been some minor gems lurking there.

And so it goes. I doubt I'll better this year's final tally next year, but that's the nature of a challenge, isn't it?







Final Challenge tally:

Total Viewings: 37

First Time Viewings: 37




1 comment:

Bob Turnbull said...

Definitely want to hear what you have to say about both Sauna and Ink. I really liked Sauna as its slow pace really dug into you> not something I would recommend to everyone, but I appreciated its ability to incorporate "Stalker" into a horror concept.

"Ink" was something I really wanted to like - a friend of mine was a strong backer, it had an interesting idea, great image to go with the posters and DVD covers and I was curious how they would work in effects around the low budget. It never pulled things together though as it seemed every scene just couldn't quite find a comfortable spot to sit...I don't know, I haven't been able to quite express why it didn't work for me (apart from some stilted acting which always hurts).