HOOPTOBER 12 HIGH (AND LOW) LIGHTS!!!

- Best Movie: May (hands down!!!!)
- Worst Movie: Cuckoo (sorry Hunter, I still love you 😭)
- Favorite Performances: Sheryl Lee as "Laura Palmer" (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me), Lon Chaney Jr. as "Larry Talbot/The Wolf Man" (The Wolf Man), the entire cast of The Cat and the Canary, Angela Bettis as "May" (May), Harumi Shuhama as "Nao" (One Cut of the Dead), Paula Luchsinger as "Carmencita" (El Conde)
- Biggest Surprises: Night of the Eagle and The Howling
- Biggest Disappointment: probably Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Cujo
- Biggest Crush: Jeremy Sisto and Anna Faris (May), Sheryl Lee and Dana Ashbrook (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me), Cynthia Bond (Def by Temptation), Elizabeth Peña (Jacob's Ladder), Jenette Goldstein (Near Dark), Brigitte Kausch (The German Chainsaw Massacre), Austin Butler (The Dead Don't Die)
- Biggest LOLs: One Cut of the Dead, Mr. Vampire, Braindead
- Scariest Moments: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me - In the train car, The Innocents - Hide and seek, Jacob's Ladder - Hallucinating at a party, The Cat and the Canary - Groped in bed, pretty much the entire second half of Threads
- Best Music: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, El Conde

For anyone who may be wondering, my list title comes from this song 🖤🧟‍♂️

As of 9/1/25, here are my final picks for 🎃HOOPTOBER TWELVE🎃 Cinemonster's annual horror movie challenge! This will be my fourth consecutive year participating and I had quite a time narrowing my choices down these last few days. I'm a bit of an over-achiever so no category crossovers for me, and I've even got some leftovers that I'll be viewing as a Hooptober 12 Pregame before the watch party officially starts on 9/15.

This year's list is mostly centered around finally watching films from my physical and digital libraries, and there's also some overlap with my 2025 Criterion Challenge (would you believe me if I told you I picked up a copy of The Innocents specifically to watch during Hooptober?) Other than that, I had a lot of fun searching for the right films to fill out this year's categories and I tried to include a healthy mix of classics I have yet to see and films that I have literally never heard of until this past week. I also took note from the many comments I saw in the Master List thread regarding female directors and made sure I included some ladies - I originally had only 2 films that were directed by women included in my list, I now have 6! (I've noted these selections with a 💃🏼)

Here's my list (film grid order ranked):

HOOPTOBER 12 HORROR MOVIE CHALLENGE

6 COUNTRIES
1. One Cut of the Dead - Japan ✅
2. El Conde - Chile ✅
3. I Like Bats - Poland ✅
4. Troll Hunter - Norway ✅
5. Wolf's Hole💃🏼 - Czechoslovakia ✅
6. Mr. Vampire - Hong Kong ✅

9 DECADES
7. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - 1920s ✅
8. Godzilla - 1950s ✅
9. The Innocents - 1960s ✅
10. The Last Wave - 1970s ✅
11. Near Dark💃🏼 - 1980s ✅
12. Cure - 1990s ✅
13. May - 2000s ✅
14. Revenge💃🏼 - 2010s ✅
15. Cuckoo - 2020s ✅

5 ZOMBIE FILMS
16. Zombi 2 ✅
17. The Dead Don't Die ✅
18. Braindead ✅
19. Dawn of the Dead ✅
20. Messiah of Evil💃🏼 ✅

3 CULT/CONSPIRACY FILMS
21. Society ✅
22. Banshee Chapter ✅
23. Jacob's Ladder ✅

1 FILM WITH A BLACK DIRECTOR & BLACK LEAD
24. Def by Temptation ✅

1 FILM FROM A MEXICAN/CENTRAL AMERICAN DIRECTOR
25. Alucarda ✅

1 CANADIAN FILM
26. Slash/Back💃🏼 ✅

1 SOVIET STATE FILM
27. Kratt - Estonia ✅

MOST POPULAR 1940s FILM I HAVEN'T SEEN
28. The Wolf Man ✅

2 POST-APOCALYPTIC FILMS
29. Threads ✅
30. The Night Eats the World ✅

1 FILM FEATURING DREAMS
31. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me ✅

1 "THE ANIMALS ARE PISSED" FILM
32. Cujo ✅

1 SILENT FILM
33. The Cat and the Canary ✅

4 FILMS BASED ON NOVELS
34. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - based on "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, 1818 ✅
35. Pontypool - based on "Pontypool Changes Everything" by Tony Burgess, 1995 ✅
36. The Dead Zone - based on "The Dead Zone" by Stephen King, 1979 ✅
37. The Howling - based on "The Howling" by Gary Brandner, 1977 ✅

1 FILM FROM CINEMONSTER'S FAVORITES LIST
38. Blood Diner💃🏼 ✅

1 FILM WRITTEN BY ERNESTO GASTALDI
39. Torso ✅

1 FILM FROM 1932
40. Doctor X ✅

IN MEMORY OF DAVID LYNCH: THE WIZARD OF OZ
41. The Wizard of Oz ✅

1 FILM DIRECTED BY TOBE HOOPER
42. Lifeforce ✅

EXTRA CREDIT FILMS
43. Burn Witch Burn ✅
44. The German Chainsaw Massacre ✅
45. Trick or Treat ✅


And these are the films that were at one point included in my list, but ultimately did not make the cut this year: Annabelle (Decades: 2010s), Ichi the Killer (Countries: Japan), Disturbing Behavior✅(Decades: 1990s), Re-Animator (Zombies),  Apostle ✅(Cults/Conspiracies), Sputnik (Soviet States), Dead Ringers (Decades: 1980s), In a Violent Nature (Canadian), and Piranha (Decades: 1970s). Don’t worry, I’ll be checking some of them out anyway and including them in my 101 Days of Halloween 🎃 list! 

Original list by Cinemonster HERE.

There's no place like Hooptober 🌈🎃 Happy Halloween, everyone!