October Horror Movie Challenge: Day 1

This year I'm going to be participating in my second October Horror Movie Challenge! For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's basically a little game that people on IMDB cobbled up a few years back and it has spread to other film-centric sites since. The goal, as it was initially rule, was to watch 31 horror movies in the 31 days of October. About half of them were meant to be films you have never seen before. It's a great idea and I tried to do it seriously two months back and managed to watch somewhere around 60-70 films.

Now I have more on my plate so I don't know if I'll be able to beat it, but I'd like to at least match myself. It's not as if I usually don't watch horror movies (as the contents of my blog should make readily apparent) but there's something special about watching them during October. It's always during this month that it feels like it's truly celebrated to enjoy horror.

With that, I'd like to share what I watched for day one of the change and some thoughts on them. I figure I won't be able to review each movie specifically, although maybe I will for ones that really got my attention.

First I watched Pieces which has been on my plate for a long time. A lot of people seem to find this a classic, and at first I couldn't see why. Sure, there were some gnarly death scenes but beyond that it didn't seem to lift itself up beyond everything else in the crowded slasher years of the 80s. However, as I continued watching something funny happened. I began to realize that the whole film is really a comedy, just played straight. Lines here and there are just too silly to have been meant to be taken seriously, as for other scenes. Oh, and that final scare? It's totally stupid, but also one of the most unexpected things that I've seen since the ending of Sleepaway Camp.

Then came The Funhouse. Well, initially I cued up I Know What You Did Last Summer before realizing I'd totally seen it before. Don't know how it evaded my watched list. Either way, The Funhouse is something that's been on the list for a while as well. However, I kept passing it up under the idea that it was already something I'd watched before. As it turned out, I was confusing the film with Clownhouse. Even though they didn't have similar descriptions, the amount of clown stuff advertising The Funhouse (as well as the names) made them connect in my mind.

The film actually turned out to be pretty neat, although not what I expected. The idea and cover conjured up some sort of possessed/evil carnival. That didn't turn out to be the case though and it was probably for the better. Instead we're treated to a butt ugly being and some entertaining teens. One big plus is how the film builds up for a long time (more than half the film) before anyone dies. I always appreciate when the director can keep things relatively "normal" for a long time before bringing in the monstrous elements.