Back for my third year of Hooptober, and as now a seasoned vet I've built a bespoke list that will transport us to great heights and then into the depths of hell. We start the month traveling to outer space before crashing back to Earth for a mixture of Lovecraftian horror and urban legend. Then, we descend further into literal Christian Hell, with a spotlight on the legacy of William Friedkin. While there, we sample some deeply hidden horrors and some old favorites (Draculas, Frankensteins) alike. Once surfacing, we experience true hells, manmade hells in the form of war and shadowy government experiments. Appropriately changed, we emerge back into reality to consider everyday horrors, starting with some changelings and then a series of noirish investigative horrors ends the month.

As with Hooptobers past, I'm doing one film for every category, no overlap, which means 40 films. All are first time watches (bar one). I will watch them all in October in the order listed below, which means doubling up on a few weekends.

Happy Hooptober X: Jason Takes Manhattan to you and yours!

QUICK EASY RULES:
There must be 31 films

6 countries

8 decades

2 post apocalyptic or natural disaster related films

1 film with Robert Englund

1 something is underground film

3 Satan/Devil centered films

1 Amicus film.

The worst Dracula film (by Letterboxd rating) that you haven't seen and can access.

1 LGBTQ+ connected film

5 Films from De Palma, Wes Craven, Ken Russell, Hitchcock and/or Morehead & Benson.

2 Peter Cushing films

1 film based on a work of or invoking the name Bram Stoker

1 film based on a Clive Barker story

1 film that was released the year that you turned 10

1 Mario Bava film.

1 film with an 'x' in the title
And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)
***FOR THOSE THAT LIKE TO DO EXTRA WORK: WATCH The Zodiac Killer and 10 Rillington Place. Like last year, there is a third film: Shaky Shivers.

Edit: Earlier this year I started and half-finished a "Halfway to Hooptober" list. As it's now all the way to Hooptober, I'm going to use the September portion of the celebration where I'm usually stuck waiting for the calendar to flip to catch up on the Halfway films I didn't get to. I'll list them here and then add them to this list with notes once I do watch them.

Those additional films are:
- Mad God
- Sometimes They Come Back for More
- Dawn of the Dead
- Prometheus
- eXistenz
- Dead Ringers
- Multiple Maniacs
- das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari
- Impulse
- Bram Stoker's Dracula
- Phantom of the Opera
- the Shining
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Edit 2: I've been adding some additional films beyond my list that I plan to watch during Hooptober, as if the original list wasn't large enough.