[Done! Link to ranking and reviews!]

It's the most wonderful time of the year, folks!

H🧟‍♂️O🧟‍♂️O🧟‍♂️P🧟‍♂️T🧟‍♂️O🧟‍♂️B🧟‍♂️E🧟‍♂️R🧟‍♂️!

Hooptober is preparing to officially kick off on its ninth year straight! And while this will only be MY second time participating, last year was such a blast that it made me an instant dedicated fan of this beloved annual Letterboxd tradition...so much so that I've been basically counting down the days until we can all join together and do it once again!

As for my personal picks RE this year's categories: not only am I doing 100% first time watches again, but I'm making a conscious effort to watch a few more modern genre efforts than usual (something that I often fall behind on in my day-to-day) and to throw in some movies that push the very definition of what "horror" means.

Link to kickoff post from the one and only Cinemonster.

Let's get spooky! Let's get weird! Let's watch some goddamn horror movies! #Hooptober9

RULES:
Watch (at least) 31 movies between Sept 15 and Oct 31. One movie can satisfy multiple categories (but none will for me). And last, but certainly not least: rate and review every last one.

Below are my picks for this year:

[SIX COUNTRIES]
- This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967)
- Lake Mungo (2008)
- The Visitor (1979)
- The Similars (2015)
- Tilbury (1987)
- Quatermass And The Pit (1967)

[EIGHT DECADES]
- Dead Of Night (1945)
- I Bury The Living (1958)
- Wait Until Dark (1967)
- The Deadly Spawn (1983)
- Sleepwalkers (1992)
- Versus (2000)
- Antiviral (2012)
- We're All Going To The World's Fair (2021)

[TWO INSECT CENTERED FILMS]
- They Nest (2000)
- Kingdom Of The Spiders (1977)

[ONE FILM SET IN SPACE OR THE FUTURE]
- Creature (1985)

[TWO ANIMATED FILMS]
- The Wolf House (2018)
- The Spine Of Night (2021)

[ONE BLOODTHIRSTY OLD PERSON FILM]
- Grandmother's House (1988)

[TWO US REGIONAL HORROR FILMS FROM THE 1970s]
- Daddy's Deadly Darling (1973)
- Scalpel (1977)

[WORST UNSEEN PART TWO FROM THE 1990s]
- Carnosaur 2 (1995)

[ONE GERMAN SILENT HORROR FILM]
- Faust (1926)

[ONE FILM BY DAVID CRONENBERG]
- eXistenz (1999)

[ONE FILM BY TI WEST]
- X (2022)

[ONE FILM BY BILL REBANE]
- The Demons Of Ludlow (1983)

[ONE FILM BY CHARLES B. PIERCE]
- The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

[ONE FILM BY JOY N HOUCK JR]
- Night Of The Strangler (1972)

[TWO CHRISTOPHER LEE FILMS]
- Horror Express (1972)
- The City Of The Dead (1960)

[ONE FILM FEATURING A MUSICIAN OR BAND]
- Wild Zero (1999)

[ONE STEPHEN KING FILM THAT ISN'T THE FIRST ADAPTATION]
- Trucks (2000)

[ONE LON CHANEY FILM]
- The Phantom Of The Opera (1925)

[ONE TOBE HOOPER FILM]
- The Mangler (1995)

[EXTRA CREDIT FOR MANIACS]
- The Last Circus (2010)
- Silent Madness (1984)
- Pennywise: The Story Of IT (2022)