Chloe's Not Scared

I participated in my first ever Hooptober this Halloween season. Hooptober (a play-on-words with October and Tobe Hooper) is an annual Letterboxd horror-movie watching event, created by Cinemonster. I’ve watched from afar for a few years, but this year- its 8th season– I decided to participate.

The rules are pretty simple. You have to watch 31 movies between mid-September and Halloween. You must review them all, on Letterboxd. Each film can count for multiple categories. I view Hooptober as an invitation to watch horror that gets you out of your comfort zone. 

The categories for 2021 were:

• 6 countries
• 8 decades
• 2 folk horror
• 4 films from 1981
• 2 filmes from your birth year
• 2 haunted house films
• The worst Part 2 you haven’t seen and can easily access
• 1 film set in the woods
• 1 Kaiju or Kong film (not the new one)
• 2 Hammer films
• 3 films with a POC as director or lead (excluding Asian)
• 3 Asian horror films
• And 1 Tobe Hooper film (there must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)
• Extra credit, watch: JD’s Revenge, The Skull, and The Scooby Doo Project 

I’m including the list of the movies I chose and their rankings at the bottom of this post. But first! Let’s discuss how my list evolved, my new favorites, some stats, and what I will do differently next year.

Usually participants create their list of movies prior to the Hooptober start date, but I’ve been told that lists rarely stay the same from start to end. Mine was no different. First of all, I selected Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho but accidentally got Gus Van Sant’s Psycho at the library. I also tried to watch the new The Djinn but I ended up watching most of Tobe Hooper’s Djinn before I realized my mistake (to my defense, I was very tired). I replaced I Saw the Devil with Pulse because my bff Matt (shoutout to Matt who first told me about Hooptober!) recommended it and I just couldn’t wait. I ended up seeing several movies in theaters, including Last Night in Soho, Halloween Kills, The People Under the Stairs, Malignant, and Possession. I rented Hide and Seek and Ghost Story in order to watch it, but the others I found on streaming, at the library, or YouTube. 

My favorites were Possession which is a new all-time fave (I watched it twice and once in theaters), and Sisters which I bought on Criterion immediately after seeing it. Shoutout to some honorable mentions including Funny Games, The Killing of the Sacred Deer, In the Mouth of Madness, The Funhouse, and The People Under the Stairs. I don’t have data to back this up, but generally I saw the movies The Beyond, In the Mouth of Madness, The Funhouse, plus the movies coming to theaters (Malignant, et al) appear on lots of Hooptober VIII lists.

In the future, I plan to balance everything wayyy better: add more gateway horror, sci-fi, thrillers, comedies and satires so it’s not just all hard-R slashers and psychological horror. I would also like to continue to focus on my blind spots of great horror directors, which I did a little bit here (Wes Craven, George Romero, John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Brian De Palma) but I’d love to add more women directors (Karen Kusama, Julia Ducournau, Jackie Kong, Lynne Ramsay, Leigh Janiak just to name a few). I also could’ve been a lot more racially diverse in my list, which embarrasses me but I also want to be honest. About 3/4 of my list were movies featuring a nearly all-white cast. That’s fucked up and not going to happen again. Next year I’m also going to seek out South American and African horror movies, a huge blind spot in my list this year. If you have any ideas of horror movies that I should put on my list for 2022, please let me know!

Here were the movies I watched:

• Midsommar (2019)- Amazon
• Wake Wood (2009)- Tubi
• The Wailing (2016)- Shudder
• Possession (1981)- Theaters
• Ghost Story (1981)- Amazon [$$]
• The Funhouse (1981)- Paramount
• The Beyond (1981)- Amazon
• The People Under the Stairs (1991)- Theaters [Drive In]
• Popcorn (1991)- YouTube
• Malignant (2021)- Theaters/HBO Max
• Hide and Seek (2005)- Amazon [$$]
• The Old Dark House (1932)- Tubi
• Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013)- Tubi
• Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)- Tubi
• Mothra v. Godzilla (1964)- HBO Max
• The Nanny (1965)- YouTube
• Night of the Living Dead (1968)- HBO Max
• Tales from the Hood (1995)- Library
• Djinn (2013)- YouTube
• In the Mouth of Madness (1994)- Library
• Halloween Kills (2021)- Theaters
• Funny Games (1997)- HBO Max
• Diabolique (1955)- HBO Max
• Tenebre (1982)- Shudder
• Last Night in Soho (2021)- Theaters
• 28 Days Later (2002)- HBO Max
• Tag (2015)- Tubi
• Lamb (2021)- Theaters
• The Killing of the Sacred Deer (2017)- Library
• Pulse (2001)- Hoopla
• Sisters (1972)- HBO Max
• Psycho (1998)- Library

Because I’m an overachiever, I did the extra credit.

• JD’s Revenge (1976)- Amazon
• The Skull (1965)- Vimeo
• The Scooby Doo Project (1999)- YouTube

To see my Letterboxd list of all the Hooptober films, my reviews (because I indeed followed the rules and reviewed them all) and what I rated each film, please visit my profile. To learn more about Hooptober in general, read this interview with Cinemonster in Letterboxd News.

Cover photo: Night of the Living Dead at 50 by loewsjersey on Flickr (CC by-ND 2.0).