Horrorfest 2014

Once again my favorite time of year has rolled around, and once again all my reviews over the next month will concentrate on the horror genre or variations thereof. That is about all that will be the same this year, however. This will be the first year I go into Horrorfest without a clear plan about what movies I’m going to watch over the next month. I’m a little excited about this prospect at going into it without a plan of attack. Of course, that makes it a little difficult to put together some sort of preview for it.

What fueled this change of format are some major life changes. At the very end of last year’s Horrorfest my family suffered a minor tragedy that uprooted many of the way things had been for quite some time. It didn’t affect last year’s Horrorfest as I’d finished watching all the films on my schedule before it happened. Immediately after Horrorfest ended, A Penny in the Well felt the changes. A movie a day was just no longer possible to keep up. I still do my best, but there is only so much time in a day and a week. The addition of my fourth child this past spring has made things even more difficult time wise and there are more important things to concentrate my energies on than movies. Movies are still important, however, and horror movies are my favorites. So Horrorfest will prevail.

I will do my best to get in one review a day over the month of October, but I’m not making any promises. Most of the movies will be as much of a surprise to me as they will to my readers. I do know I will attempt to screen many of the major horror cinematic releases over the month, including “Annabelle”, “Horns”, “The BoxTrolls”, and “Gone Girl”. I will also republish some of the full-length reviews I’ve done this year for the e-zine “Zombie Apocalypse Monthly”, including reviews of “White Zombie”, “Birth of the Living Dead”, and the extended cut of “World War Z”.

There are also a couple of television shows that I will feature for Horrorfest. Season four of “The Walking Dead” was a shake up season for the popular horror series, and I will weigh in on it before the premiere of season five. Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s television adaptation of their modern vampire take “The Strain” will wrap up its first season during the month of October, and I’ll let you know what I thought of it. I may also tackle season two of “Hannibal” and/or season one of “Fargo”, depending on whether or not I get finished with them in time.

The advent of streaming services has made an amazing amount of movies available to watch on a whim. This will be the most distinct guiding force of this year’s festival. There are a few flicks in my Netflix account that I’m pretty sure I’d like to get around to, however. Mario Bava’s “Black Sabbath” and “Black Sunday”, the voodoo flick “The Believers”, “Insidious Chapter 2”, last summer’s sleeper hit “You’re Next”, Ti West’s “The Sacrament” and Jim Jarmusch’s vampire take “Only Lovers Left Alive” are all likey to get screenings this year. I may also revisit “Zodiac”, something I’ve been meaning to do ever since it was added to the Netflix lineup.

So, for a Horrorfest without much of a plan, that’s quite a plan. I’d better get watchin’.