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 the show must go on!
I typically aim for a wide variety of films, with as many countries, subgenres, and time periods represented as possible. However, this year’s focus is narrower. First, to celebrate the growing support for the Black Lives Matter movement, I’ve gathered a bunch of films showcasing Black perspectives, which have traditionally been underrepresented, stereotyped, and/or tokenized in horror. Second, some picks from one of the genre’s most pivotal decades, by way of Criterion Channel’s ’70s Horror collection. And third, a peek into the last 10 years or so of the overlooked world of short-form fright flicks. Some other odds and ends are also scattered throughout, including a couple of double features of classics and their recent remakes.
I haven’t seen any of these films before, so don’t take them as recommendations per se, but none of them were included frivolously. If you decide to watch any, I hope you enjoy. Have a horrific month!
Horror Noire
A look at the history of Black horror films and the role of African Americans in the film genre from the very beginning.
Ganja & Hess
After being stabbed with an ancient cursed dagger, an anthropologist finds himself with an insatiable desire for blood.
Sugar Hill
When her boyfriend is murdered by gangsters, Sugar Hill decides not to get mad, but BAD! The bad guys who think they got away clean are about to find out that they’re DEAD wrong.
It’s Alive
The Davises expect a baby, which turns out to be a monster with a nasty habit of killing when it’s scared. And it’s easily scared.
Long Weekend
When a suburban couple go camping for the weekend at a remote beach, they discover that nature isn’t in an accommodating mood.
The Invisible Man
A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.
The Invisible Man
When Cecilia’s abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.
Street Trash
A liquor store owner sells alcoholic beverages to homeless people, unaware of what the bottles actually contain: toxic brew.
The Driller Killer
An artist slowly goes insane while struggling to pay his bills, work on his paintings, and care for his two roommates, which leads him taking to the streets of New York after dark and randomly killing derelicts with a power drill.
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight
A man on the run is hunted by a demon known as the Collector.
Tales from the Hood
A funeral director tells four strange tales of horror with an African American focus to three drug dealers he traps in his place of business.
From Nerdist’s “20 Terrifying Short Horror Films You Can Watch On YouTube”
Office Killer
A mousy office worker accidentally kills one of her coworkers, then proceeds to bump off a few others.
Blood Diner
Two cannibalistic brothers kill various young women to use their flesh in their new special dish at their rundown restaurant, while seeking blood sacrifices to awaken a dormant Egyptian goddess.
The Witches
A young boy stumbles onto a witch convention and must stop them, even after he has been turned into a mouse.
Roald Dahl’s The Witches
Based on Roald Dahl’s 1983 classic book ‘The Witches’, the story tells the scary, funny and imaginative tale of a seven year old boy who has a run in with some real life witches!
Coma
When a young doctor notices an unnatural amount of comas occurring in her hospital she uncovers a horrible conspiracy.
Eve’s Bayou
What did little Eve see—and how will it haunt her? Husband, father and womanizer Louis Batiste is the head of an affluent family, but it’s the women who rule this gothic world of secrets, lies and mystic forces.
The Girl with All the Gifts
A scientist and a teacher living in a dystopian future embark on a journey of survival with a special young girl named Melanie.
Atlantics
In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future.
Chained
Bob is a cab-driving serial killer who stalks his prey on the city streets alongside his reluctant protégé Tim, who must make a life or death choice between following in Bob’s footsteps or breaking free from his captor.
Images
A schizophrenic housewife, engulfed by terrorizing apparitions, kills off each, not knowing if these demons are merely figments of her hallucinatory imagination or part of reality.
Rabid
A young woman develops a taste for human blood after experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into blood-thirsty zombies, leading into a city-wide epidemic.
Deathdream
A young soldier killed in Vietnam inexplicably shows up to his family home one night.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
A newly-engaged couple have a breakdown in an isolated area and must seek shelter at the bizarre residence of Dr. Frank-n-Furter.