Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Last year, after knocking back a rack of High Life and washing it down with some Crown Royale, I went on a rant about why we deserve better movies for the Halloween season (get sauced and check that shit out HERE). A year’s gone by and my drunken rants appeared to not only have fallen on deaf ears, but the exact opposite happened: instead of us getting better horror movies—we now hardly have any. And for a horror movie fan fanatic, having the cineplexes empty of horror in October is a sacrilege! A goddamn shame, if you want to get right down to it. So this year, while not sounding like a total broken f*ckin’ record, I’d like to make a plea for studios to grow a brain (and some balls) and release horror films in October! Come on people, where’s all the horror at this year?

I don’t even give that much of a shit about quality anymore, there simply isn’t anything being released these days, and the few that are are simply limited releases and are few and far between. Look what we have here: DREAM HOUSE on September 30th (still a little early, but we’ll throw it in here), THE THING and THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (limited) on October 7th, nothing for October 14th, then PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 and RED STATE (limited) on October 21st, then nothing for October 28th. And that’s it folks, the Halloween season is over and the everyday movie watcher stops diggin’ on horror and moves on to shit like IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE or some other holiday bullsh*t. Look at the f*ckin’ line-up! Three major releases and two limited releases and that’s f*ckin’ it. What the hell is going on here? Why aren’t we getting any love?

Through my bleary-eyed beer-goggles, I can already hear the argument: because PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is going to clean-house. Well f*ck that noise. That’s no reason to abandon the rest of the month—especially the week before it that’s getting absolutely no love whatsoever. Just because PA2 beat the snot out of SAW: THE FINAL CHAPTER doesn’t mean it’ll beat any other horror flick released around the same time: it just meant the SAW franchise had run its course and nobody gave a f*ck about the series anymore. I don’t even know what the hell is going on in the world when October is shat on with some of the weakest horror titles of the year! It’s as blasphemous as July having only one big summer movie release—I mean, can you imagine if TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON was the only July release? What the f*ck would we do for the rest of the month? TF3 cleaned house then HARRY POTTER swooped in a couple weeks later and f*cked shit up even more.

I know. Comparing October horror release to tentpole summer blockbusters is f*cking stupid and makes no sense, but… it’s the only other real comparison that I got. Sue me. And now that I’m thinking about it, I guess I will retread on my rant from last year: it’s not that horror has been completely abandoned this year, it’s that the few horror flicks being released largely blow assholes (and in THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2’s case, I mean that quite literally). I mean, THE THING remake as one of two of the biggest horror releases for the month? Seriously? They could do better than that!

Maybe it’s the booze talkin’, but I love me some horror in October and the shit that’s being released this month is few and far between. Horror should be bleeding out of every theater across the Nation, people should have more than one scary movie option to see at the movies, and yet the pickings are slim and (worse yet) the majority of them are shit. Hell, at this point, I’d be just as happy if studios decided to double-dip and rocked a bunch of classic horror re-releases all month. Give TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, or even GRAVEYARD SHIFT a limited theatrical release for the month and see what happens. I own all those movies and buy tickets to see each and every one of those more than I would DREAM HOUSE or THE THING (or even THC2, for that matter). So my plea for October 2012: a new horror movie every week, if not two, and while we’re at it: make sure they don’t suck.