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31 Days of Halloween - Introduction

"October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup.
 October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins.
 O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!"
              —Rainbow Rowell

Remember when I used to do this? No?

Ten years ago I started what I hoped would be some kind of tradition; watch a horror movie every night through the month of October and blog about it. I kept it up, too, for five years.

And then I had two kids. The first was born in November 2016, and a month before there simply didn't seem to be time enough for a nightly movie, so the project fell by the wayside. I always intended to continue it, but inertia is a very strong force. It didn't help that Livejournal, my blogging platform of choice, has been on its last legs for more than a decade. I tried Wordpress instead, tried to use it, hated it, abandoned it.

But (as recently discussed) I've completely reworked my website, implemented A Very Complicated Bash Script to publish it, and am feeling good about starting over or again or whatever. So, here we are.

I love October. I love Halloween. And I'm optimistic this year because 1) I feel like we all really need it considering that there's no end in sight to the pandemic, and 2) I've never had an October like this before. My parents always talk about how their childhood Octobers were temperate and pleasant, and what a shame it is that my sister and I got cold, rainy Octobers. This October dawned warm and bright, and the temperature didn't drop during the first third of September as it usually does in southern Wisconsin. I'm taking that as a good sign. It's not, of course; the world is burning and we're running out of resources and my nice October is only the subtlest sign that climate change is happening no matter how hard we deny it. But I'm hoping—fingers crossed—that my family and I get one of those Ray Bradbury Octobers we usually only wish for.

Anyway, I'm gonna try it again: a movie a day. We'll see how it goes, and I might cheat with half-hour TV specials if I need to; I'm already planning on exploring some shorter subjects just because I'm on a schedule and there's not a lot of time left after the kids get to sleep. But as I said, I'm optimistic.

Here goes nothin'.

October 1: Trilogy of Terror II
October 2: A Photograph
October 3: Cool Air
October 4: The Murders in the Rue Morgue
October 5: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
October 6: Robin Redbreast
October 7: The Demon
October 8: The Void
October 9: The Brute Man
October 10: Tales of Halloween
October 11: Dead of Night
October 12: The Yellow Sign
October 13: Doctor X
October 14: The Return of Doctor X
October 15: Idle Hands
October 16: The Black Cat
October 17: Chopping Mall
October 18: Gargoyles
October 19: Psycho Goreman
October 20: Shrunken Heads
October 21: Dark Heritage
October 22: Return of the Living Dead III
October 23: Altitude
October 24: Asylum
October 25: Manos: Hands of Felt
October 26: Ghoul
October 27: The House with a Clock in Its Walls
October 28: The Corridor
October 29: House of the Witch
October 30: The Devil Bat
October 31: Freaky