Shocktober 2019: 31 Nights Of Frights

I love October and I love a good scare. While everyone else is shopping for pumpkins & autumn clothing, Trick-Or-Treating and navigating through haunted houses, I’m making ex-friends of my unsuspecting victims with my latest and greatest pranks. “Shocktober”, to me, is a 31-day run of madness and mischief.

And when each day is done, I laugh and decompress with a good movie. Not just any movie, but a good ol’ fashioned horror flick.

Every year I pick a different list of movies (a few are necessary repeats) to watch, always ending with John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, “Halloween” with Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance.

Here is this year’s line-up, not in order of greatness, but when they will be watched. And remember, this is my list. It’s not about being a good or bad movie. It’s what I want to watch…

Warning: Pictures may serve as spoilers. One in particular may cause you to lose a few night’s sleep. You’ve been warned…

Descriptions provided by the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

1. Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight (1995) – A man on the run is hunted by a demon known as the Collector.

2. The Mist (2007) – A freak storm unleashes a species of bloodthirsty creatures on a small town, where a small band of citizens hole up in a supermarket and fight for their lives.

3. Paranormal Activity (2007) – After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.

4. It (2017) – In the summer of 1989, a group of bullied kids band together to destroy a shape-shifting monster, which disguises itself as a clown and preys on the children of Derry, their small Maine town.

5. It: Chapter 2 (2019) – Twenty-seven years after their first encounter with the terrifying Pennywise, the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call brings them back.

6. The Wolf Man (1941) – A practical man returns to his homeland, is attacked by a creature of folklore, and infected with a horrific disease his disciplined mind tells him can not possibly exist.

Note: This was the first movie to ever scare me. Here has only been one since.

7. The Stand (1994) – After a deadly plague kills most of the world’s population, the remaining survivors split into two groups – one led by a benevolent elder and the other by a maleficent being – to face each other in a final battle between good and evil.

8. Lost Boys (1987) – After moving to a new town, two brothers discover that the area is a haven for vampires.

9. Frankenstein (1931) – An obsessed scientist assembles a living being from parts of exhumed corpses.

10. Insidious (2010) – A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further.

11. Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982) – Kids all over America want Silver Shamrock masks for Halloween. Doctor Daniel Challis seeks to uncover a plot by Silver Shamrock owner Conal Cochran.

12. Friday The 13th (1980) – A group of camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp which, years before, was the site of a child’s drowning.

13. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) – When seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade a small town, replicating the residents one body at a time

14. Storm Of The Century (1999) – A dangerous blizzard hits an isolated town and brings along a mysterious stranger intent on terrorizing people for his own desires.

15. Trilogy Of Terror (1975) – Three bizarre horror stories, all of which star Karen Black in four different roles playing tormented women.

16. Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) – A psychiatrist familiar with knife-wielding dream demon Freddy Krueger helps teens at a mental hospital battle the killer who is invading their dreams.

17. Hellraiser (1987) – An unfaithful wife encounters the zombie of her dead lover; the demonic cenobites are pursuing him after he escaped their sadomasochistic underworld.

18. Candyman (1992) – The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster’s myth.

19. Halloween (2018) – Laurie Strode confronts her long-time foe Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

20. Blacula (1972) – An ancient African prince, turned into a vampire by Dracula himself, finds himself in modern Los Angeles.

21. John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998) – Recovering from an ambush that killed his entire team, a vengeful vampire slayer must retrieve an ancient Catholic relic that, should it be acquired by vampires, will allow them to walk in sunlight.

22. The Descent (2005) – A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators.

23. Child’s Play (1988) – A single mother gives her son a much sought-after doll for his birthday, only to discover that it is possessed by the soul of a serial killer.

24. Aliens (1986) – Ellen Ripley is rescued by a deep salvage team after being in hypersleep for 57 years. The moon that the Nostromo visited has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, colonial marines have impressive firepower, but will that be enough?

25. Dawn Of The Dead (2004) – A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.

26. Pet Sematary (1989) – After tragedy strikes, a grieving father discovers an ancient burial ground behind his home with the power to raise the dead.

27. The Exorcist (1973) – When a teenage girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two priests to save her daughter.

28. Carrie (1976) – Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.

29. The Thing (1982) – A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.

30. The Fog (1980) – An unearthly fog rolls into a small coastal town exactly 100 years after a ship mysteriously sank in its waters.

THIS, surprisingly, is the only other movie that actually scared me (for personal reasons).

31. Halloween (1978) – Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

…and that’s it! That’s what I’ll be watching this month, every evening (some through the day on the weekend because of length). I hope you enjoyed perusing and that it gave you some ideas of what to watch and inspiration to begin your own tradition.

Sweet Screams!

What movies do you intend to watch this month?
What are you afraid to watch again?

Share your thoughts in the comments section and be sure to subscribe to enjoy more of my lists, recipes, laughs and anything else my demented mind conjures…

6 comments

  1. Demon Knight, Blacula, Child’s Play and Candyman are some of my favorites on this list which I plan on watching this month. That and Fright Night, Bones and a few others. I love October. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  2. I wanted to add Fright Night and Bones did cross my mind at one point. It’s just bad that I had to restrict it to 31 movies. Thanks, as always, for reading!

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  3. I like “ Others “, Candyman, Something wicked this way comes “, Hell Raisers and The Puppet Master! 😈

    Liked by 1 person

  4. I did think about this movie, but I can’t quite see it as horror. I was thinking about putting it in another blog about movies I liked that didn’t do well at the box office.

    I think it failed because it didn’t take itself serious enough, so people didn’t know if it was a scary comedy or a funny horror film.

    Haven’t seen It 2, that’s why it’s on my list.

    Thanks for sharing, Janellyyyy!

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  5. I haven’t seen “Something Wicked…” in a long time. I loved the book, but was mainly interested in the movie because it had Pam Grier! LOL

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