Average rating: 60.3%

I had a lovely time with my debut Hooptober, Issue #5, and I was very excited to repeat the experience with another successful adventure. In the end, this year's list turned out to be somewhat weaker than last year's; you can tell from the difference in my average rating, but also there were fewer movies this year that really stood out to me. Even so, it was a lot of fun and I discovered some great movies that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise (or would have put off for a long time), so I can't complain. Cinemonster's master list is here, for reference.

I finished this list at 9:38 on October 31st, a mere ten minutes earlier than last Hooptober. Somehow I got butterfingers and dropped the great lead I had - but now it'll still be easy to improve next year. Once again, only two substitutions: Evangeline for The Bad Batch and Revolt of the Zombies for Alice Sweet Alice.

6 countries:
Germany (The Golem: How He Came Into the World, Faust)
Japan (Id, Marebito, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Blood: The Last Vampire, Jigoku)
South Korea (Arang, Thirst)
Mexico (The Similars, Cronos)
Italy (Zombie Flesh Eaters, Blood and Black Lace)
United Kingdom (Don't Look Now)
Hong Kong (The Twins Effect)
India (Mythily Veendum Varunnu...)
Canada (Evangeline)

6 decades:
1920s: The Golem: How He Came Into the World, Faust, The Man Who Laughs
1930s: White Zombie, Revolt of the Zombies
1950s: The Alligator People
1960s: Jigoku, Blood and Black Lace
1970s: Don't Look Now, The Fury, Zombie Flesh Eaters
1980s: The Hand, Frankenstein Island, Chopping Mall, Bride of Re-Animator
1990s: Amityville 1992: It's About Time, Cronos
2000s: Blood: The Last Vampire, Bones, The Happiness of the Katakuris, The Twins Effect, Marebito, Id, Arang, Thirst
2010s: Evangeline, Haunting of Cellblock 11, The Similars, Mythily Veendum Varunnu...

6 films from before 1966:
The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920)
Faust (1926)
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
White Zombie (1932)
Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
The Alligator People (1959)
Jigoku (1960)
Blood and Black Lace (1964)

6 films whose year ends in '6':
Faust (1926)
Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Chopping Mall (1986)
Hatchet (2006)
Arang (2006)

6 films featuring work from the following: John Carl Buechler, Jack Pierce, Rob Bottin, Screaming Mad George, Lon Chaney, and Carlo Rambaldi:
Hatchet (Buechler)
White Zombie (Pierce)
The Fury (Bottin)
Bride of Re-Animator (Screaming Mad George)
The Alligator People (Chaney, Jr.)
The Hand (Rambaldi)

The 6th film of a franchise:
Amityville 1992: It's About Time

1 Reptile Rampage film as tribute to Crawl:
The Alligator People

2 films directed by women:
Id (Kei Fujiwara)
Evangeline (Karen Lam)

The lowest rated film from the '80s that you can access:
Frankenstein Island (1.9)

1 film where the men and women of the church are having a bad day:
Thirst

1 Larry Cohen or Dick Miller film:
Chopping Mall (Miller)
Amityville 1992: It's About Time (Miller)

1 Classic Universal:
The Man Who Laughs

1 film with Dee Wallace in it:
Haunting of Cellblock 11

1 film with a black director or predominantly black cast (NO JORDAN PEELE):
Bones (Ernest R. Dickerson)

1 film from a Mexican director to honor 2 great films from Gigi Saul Guerrero & Issa López (NO GDT, but it can be GSG or Issa):
The Similars (Isaac Ezban)

1 Tobe Hooper film:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

I noticed that the two female directors I chose for this year - Kei Fujiwara and Ana Lily Amirpour - are actually the same two I chose for last year. This was not intentional. While I'm obviously free to include more and change my list as I see fit, I didn't feel like switching anything out by the time I realized the situation. After all, I'm not going to have any choice but to look elsewhere next year, since Amirpour has only directed two horror-type movies (aside from the original A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night short) and Fujiwara has only directed two movies period, and it does speak to how impressed I was with their other films that I immediately gravitated towards them without a second thought.

Edit: After having seen The Bad Batch, I have decided that it doesn't really constitute horror. I have replaced it in this list with Karen Lam's Evangeline.

Edit: The end drew nigh and I wasn't feeling Alice Sweet Alice, so I replaced it at the last moment with Revolt of the Zombies. This was a bad decision.