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Robtober 2016

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a sizable schedule of horror/thriller/exploitation films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Dates and times (subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me. Also available as a handy Google calendar!

Don't Breathe

Fede Álvarez (USA, Hungary, 2016)

Three delinquents break into the house of a war veteran who is blind to steal his money. However, they discover that the man is not as defenseless as he seems.

What We Do in the Shadows

Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement (New Zealand, USA, 2014)

Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav are vampires who are struggling with the mundane aspects of modern life, like paying rent, keeping up with the chore wheel, trying to get into nightclubs, and overcoming flatmate conflicts.

Deathgasm

Jason Lei Howden (New Zealand, 2015)

Two teenage boys unwittingly summon an ancient evil entity known as The Blind One by delving into black magic while trying to escape their mundane lives.

Bloody Birthday

Ed Hunt (USA, 1981)

Three children are born at the height of an eclipse of the sun. Ten years later, they begin to murder the people around them – even their family members.

House

Nobuhiko Obayashi (Japan, 1977)

A schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt’s country home, which turns out to be haunted.

Under the Shadow

Babak Anvari (UK, Jordan, Qatar, Iran, 2016)

As a mother and daughter struggle to cope with the terrors of the post-revolution, war-torn Tehran of the 1980s, a mysterious evil begins to haunt their home.

The Visit

M. Night Shyamalan (USA, Japan, 2015)

Two siblings become increasingly frightened by their grandparents’ disturbing behavior while visiting them on vacation.

Jaws

Steven Spielberg (USA, 1975)

When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.

Jaws 2

Jeannot Szwarc (USA, 1978)

Police chief Brody must protect the citizens of Amity after a second monstrous shark begins terrorizing the waters.

Jaws 3-D

Joe Alves (USA, 1983)

A giant thirty-five-foot shark becomes trapped in a SeaWorld theme park and it's up to the sons of police chief Brody to rescue everyone.

Jaws: The Revenge

Joseph Sargent (USA, Bahamas, 1987)

Chief Brody’s widow believes that her family is deliberately being targeted by another shark in search of revenge.

I Saw the Devil

Kim Jee-woon (South Korea, 2010)

A secret agent exacts revenge on a serial killer through a series of captures and releases.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much

Mario Bava (Italy, 1963)

A mystery novel-loving American tourist witnesses a murder in Rome, and soon finds herself and her suitor caught up in a series of killings.

The Invitation

Karyn Kusama (USA, 2015)

When a man accepts an invitation to a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife, the unsettling past reopens old wounds and creates new tensions.

Two Thousand Maniacs!

Herschell Gordon Lewis (USA, 1964)

Six people are lured into a small Deep South town for a Centennial celebration where the residents proceed to kill them one by one as revenge for the town's destruction during the Civil War.

The Mummy

Karl Freund (USA, 1932)

A resurrected Egyptian mummy searches Cairo for the girl he believes to be his long-lost princess.

The Wolf Man

George Waggner (USA, 1941)

Upon his return to his father’s estate, aristocrat Larry Talbot meets a beautiful woman, attends a mystical carnival and uncovers a horrifying curse.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Charles Barton (USA, 1948)

The Wolf Man tries to warn a dimwitted porter that Dracula wants his brain for Frankenstein monster’s body.

Cat People

Jacques Tourneur (USA, 1942)

An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland’s fables if they are intimate together.

Supernatural

Victor Halperin (USA, 1933)

A serial black widow murderess returns to life in the body of a young woman to exact revenge on a former lover, a phony spiritualist who betrayed her.

TerrorVision

Ted Nicolaou (USA, Italy, 1986)

“TerrorVision” is a 1986 horror / science fiction movie; telling the tale of when a family's new satellite television system starts receiving signals from another planet, and soon it becomes the passageway to an alien world.

The New York Ripper

Lucio Fulci (Italy, 1982)

A burned-out New York police detective teams up with a college psychoanalyst to track down a vicious serial killer randomly stalking and killing various young women around the city.

The Thing from Another World

Christian Nyby (USA, 1951)

Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a bloodthirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost.

All posts in this series

Robtober 2011

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I try to watch as many horror films that I haven’t seen before as possible.

Hostel

Eli Roth (USA, Czech Republic, 2005)

Three backpackers head to a Slovak city that promises to meet their hedonistic expectations, with no idea of the hell that awaits them.

Saw

James Wan (USA, 2004)

Two men awaken to find themselves on the opposite sides of a dead body, each with specific instructions to kill the other or… See more →

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Robtober 2012

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I try to watch as many horror films that I haven’t seen before as possible.

Corman’s World

Alex Stapleton (USA, 2011)

A documentary on DIY producer/director Roger Corman and his alternative approach to making movies in Hollywood.

Not of This Earth

Roger Corman (USA, 1957)

An alien agent from the distant planet Davana is sent to Earth via a high-tech matter transporter. There, he terrorizes Southern California in an attempt to acquire blood… See more →

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Robtober 2013

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I try to watch as many horror/suspense films that I haven’t seen before as possible. This is the first year the films were somewhat carefully selected and scheduled in advance. They span seven decades and eight countries. Dates and times (subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me.

Don’t Look Now

Nicolas Roeg (UK, Italy, 1973)

A married couple grieving the recent death of their young daughter are… See more →

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Robtober 2014

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I try to watch as many horror/suspense films that I haven’t seen before as possible. Dates and times (subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me.

The Devil’s Backbone

Guillermo del Toro (Spain, Mexico, 2001)

After Carlos – a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War – arrives at an ominous boys’ orphanage, he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets which… See more →

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Robtober 2016

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a sizable schedule of horror/thriller/exploitation films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Dates and times (subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me. Also available as a handy Google calendar!

Don't Breathe

Fede Álvarez (USA, Hungary, 2016)

Three delinquents break into the house of a war veteran who is blind to steal his money. However, they discover that the man is not as defenseless as… See more →

Go to this post

Robtober 2017

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Films, dates, and times (all subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me, and ticket links are included for public screenings. The schedule is also available as a handy Google calendar and as a Letterboxd list.

Below the schedule you can find a bit about how it’s curated as well as a roundup… See more →

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Robtober 2018

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Films, dates, and times (all subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me, and ticket links are included for public screenings. The schedule is also available as a handy Google calendar and as a Letterboxd list.

This year, Michael Myers’ imminent return to the big screen has inspired me to binge my way… See more →

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Robtober 2019

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Films and dates (all subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me, and ticket links are included for public screenings.

This year, I’ve set aside a weekend to plow through the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series (I’ve only ever seen the first three). I’m also finally finishing off (the current version… See more →

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Robtober 2020

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films to watch, focusing mostly on ones I haven’t seen before. It’s usually a mix of home viewings and public theatrical screenings, and the schedule is published both for posterity and for the sake of anyone who might like to join me. This year, sadly, the pandemic will keep me out of theaters, and guests won’t be able to join me for home viewings. But… See more →

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Robtober 2021

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films to watch, focusing mostly on ones I haven’t seen before. The schedule, a mix of theatrical screenings and home viewings, is published for posterity and for the sake of anyone who might like to join me.

This year’s batch is a little less focused than usual, drawn from new releases, repertory screenings in Philadelphia, recent additions to Time Out’s “100 Best Horror Films,” Criterion… See more →

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Robtober 2021 Design Notes

The making of a custom-designed blog post

Robtober is what I call the horror movie binge I do every October. After I redesigned my site in 2017, I started documenting the event each year with a horrifically custom-designed blog post, getting a little more elaborate each time. This post goes behind the scenes of the 2021 edition.

The data

I generate my site with Jekyll, and a custom-designed post like Robtober gets its own unique layout file. To keep things tidy, all the… See more →

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Robtober 2022

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I broaden my cinematic horizons by putting together a big schedule of horror movies I haven’t seen yet. Alas, this year’s plans have been upended by my abduction, and for some reason, my mysterious captors aren’t interested in money. Instead, their ransom demand is that people watch the movies I’ve scheduled. These dudes seem like they mean business, so if you can help me out, I’d really appreciate it. But if you’re too… See more →

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Robtober 2022 Design Notes

How to design a ransom note

Happy Halloween! Here are a few quick notes about this year’s design for Robtober, my annual horror movie marathon.

The ransom letters

The ransom note concept for the title screen came to me in the middle of the night, and I don’t remember if it was inspired by something specific. But in my subsequent research, I read the entire Wikipedia article about the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, so if that’s a knowledge hole your pub… See more →

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Robtober 2023

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films to watch, focusing mostly on ones I haven’t seen before. The schedule, a mix of theatrical screenings and home viewings, is published for posterity and for the sake of anyone who might like to join me.

I’ll often use this month as an opportunity to catch up on a franchise, and this year, for reasons surpassing understanding, the new, tenth installment of the Saw… See more →

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Robtober 2024

A month’s worth of movies to help you stay awake

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films to watch, focusing mostly on ones I haven’t seen before. The schedule, a mix of theatrical screenings and home viewings, is published for posterity and for the sake of anyone who might like to join me.

This year I seem to be nostalgic for the age of Satanic panic, as I’ll be doing concurrent, chronological deep dives on The Exorcist and The Omen, two… See more →

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