The 30 Day Horror Movie Challenge Day Two

Day two is upon us, and I'm prepared to tackle Days 16 through 30 of the 30 Day Horror Movie Challenge. Let's jump right in here...

16. Horror Movie with a Great Soundtrack - Gonna come clean here, I don't really pay much attention to movie soundtracks. In fact I think a movie's music is working best when it's so seamlessly tied in with what's happening on screen that I don't even notice it. That being said, there are still great theme songs out there, like the Jaws theme. This isn't about great theme songs though, it's about soundtracks, and I suppose the hair metal badassery of the Return of the Living Dead soundtrack would be hard to top.




17. Favorite 80's Horror - In my opinion no other decade has done as much for horror as the 80's did. Almost every one of what I consider to be the true classics of the genre come from the 80's. Probably doesn't hurt that I'm a child of the 80's either, so 80's horror is what I cut my teeth on. Still, this isn't a hard choice at all for me, the single greatest entry in the Friday the 13th film series is from the 80's, 1986 to be exact. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is what 80's horror is all about for me.





18. Favorite Horror Movie Filmed in Black and White - While I'm a self-professed junkie for the classics from the 50's and 60's, especially the Universal monsters, Night of the Living Dead came out of nowhere in 1968 and blew movie goers away. Here we are over 40 years later, and I'd still put it up against any of these newer zombie flicks. For my money, it's hard to beat Night of the Living Dead in all of it's black and white gory glory.

19. Best Use of Gore - Hard to beat the goriest movie of all freakin' time for this category, isn't it? Easy pick here for Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. Two words: lawnmower scene.

20. Favorite Horror Character - I'm not sure if we're looking for a killer or just a regular character or what here, but these are my answers, and I usually root for the killer anyway as regular characters in these movies are almost alway so incredibly annoying that I can't wait to watch them get slaughtered. That being the case, nobody has dispatched as many annoying fuckers over the years as my all-time favorite horror character, the sparkle in Pamela's eye, Jason Voorhees.

21. Best Horror Franchise - If you know me at all, you already know the answer to this one. I worship the Friday the 13th series, even the ones that everybody else hates. Jason X was awesome, deal with it. But if there's one thing horror has plenty of, it's great franchises. I gotta give some honorable mention shouts to the Nightmare on Elms Street, Halloween, Evil Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Ginger Snaps, Romero's "of the Dead", and Hellraiser series'. And yes, I like the Hellraiser movies, even most of the dtv ones.




22. Best Death Scene - What constitutes a great death scene? The killer? The weapon? Where it happened? How attached you had become to the character getting killed? To some extent I think all of those things are important. But the thing that really makes a death scene memorable for me is it's staying power, or how bad it fucks you up, at times even for the rest of your life. Only one kill fits that bill for me, and no matter how badly a character is getting it, I can always look at them and say "Hey, it could always be worse, you could be Quint from Jaws". The fact that my father let me watch this as a kid is the reason to this day that I refuse to go near the ocean, I am terrified of sharks. It screwed me up for life, and therefore is the greatest death scene ever put on film. In fact it's so effective that I even had a hard time looking it up to get a pic for this post.

23. A Great Quote from a Horror Movie - I'm one of those people who watches movies that I love to the point that I can recite them verbatim. I'm also one of those guys who will use obscure movie quotes in conversation where applicable, which often leaves me getting confusing stares and awkward sliences. Good thing I don't talk to many people, right? Anyway, few movies are as filled with movie quote gold as From Dusk Till Dawn. Here's one of my favorites: "Did they look like psychos? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires. Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are."

24. Horror Movie Character that Describes You - This one I probably put more thought into than any other, and still couldn't come up with a perfect answer. You would think a horror movie loving, comic book reading, video game junkie character wouldn't be that hard to find in the horror genre, but I can't think of any. I almost went with Mark from The Dream Child for the comic book thing, but he couldn't stand the sight of blood, and I work in surgery so that didn't make sense. Also Spencer from Freddy's Dead for the video game thing, but he was a stoner and I've never done drugs. I would've done Ed from Shaun of the Dead, but even he's not exactly right and I've already used Shaun of the Dead. So for this one, I'm just going to go with Ashley J. Williams  from the Evil Dead series because no matter what that dude does, shit just never goes right for him. That's me to a tee, plus I would totally cut my left hand off and replace it with a chainsaw if I could. Hail to the King baby!

25. Favorite Christmas Horror Movie - Pretty much all I saw for this one were picks for Silent Night, Deadly Night or Black Christmas. I don't really dig the Silent Night movies, despite the fact that I've seen them all, and the original Black Christmas was good, but certainly not great. I have a little Xmas Eve tradition of waiting for my kids to go to sleep so I can wrap presents while watching my favorite Christmas horror movie, Santa's Slay. I'd watch it any day over Black Christmas or any of the Silent Night movies.

26. Horror Movie for a Chicken - If we're talking best horror movie starring a chicken, I gotta give that to either Poultrygeist, Rottweiler, or even Paranormal Craptivity II (for the invisible chicken, duh). But I'm assuming this is for a horror movie to show to somebody who is afraid of horror movies. So, for that I'll say The Monster Squad. It is, in my opinion, fun for the whole family despite a little bit of bad language, oh and the whole exploding werewolf thing, but other than that, yeah the whole family.

27. Your Guilty Pleasure Horror Movie - Gotta admit, most people seemed to be disappointed with Dead Snow, but I love it. It's full of good gore, has some outstanding zombie make-up, is hilarious at times (the molotov scene!), and I don't know if you know this or not, but it's a movie with Nazi zombies. NAZI ZOMBIES PEOPLE. What's not to like?








28. Horror Movie You Would Like to See Remade - I may be drawn and quartered for this one, and believe me I agree there's nothing wrong with the original, but every time I watch Rosemary's Baby I can' help but think a little updating might do it some good. I honestly don't think anything needs to be changed, must less polyester in the wardrobe department if you know what I'm saying.

29. Worst Horror Movie - Ouch, impossible to pick. I haven't even seen every horror movie, but I have seen a TON of terrible ones. For this category though, I'm not just going to pick the one I thought was the worst, because in all fairness not every movie gets a multi-million dollar budget to work with, and a lot of times people just have to work with what they have. For my pick, I'm going with the biggest disappointment. A movie that I had high hopes for, that had the budget and people behind it to be something really good, and was so unforgivably awful that I felt betrayed. I felt like calling up Wes Craven and apologizing to him myself, and I didn't even have anything to do with the making of it. I'm looking at you, A Nightmare on Elm Street remake. For shame. Want more details on just how much I hated this movie? Allow me to direct your attention here.

30. Best Horror Movie - Yep, I've known this one was coming the whole time, I've thought and debated about it, I've come up with several answers but have changed my mind every single time. The only answer I could ever give and be completely happy with is this, there is absolutely no way I could ever pick just one single horror movie as the best ever. There are simply way too many variables, genres, sub-genres, and my tastes have changed over the years. For example, there was a time when I thought movies didn't get any better than Terminator 2, of course I was 12 at the time. So I'm not going to pick one here. Sorry if I've let anyone down by doing this, but I would literally come back to this post and edit this pick at least a million times long after it had published and no one would ever see it again. The fact of the matter is I would know it's here, and I won't do that to myself. I will however throw out a few of the contenders: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, An American Werewolf in London, Army of Darkness, The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street III: The Dream Warriors, Aliens, Halloween, The Wolfman (original), and even though I used it in a different category Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. See, all those and I still feel like I'm leaving a ton of stuff out. These are the kinds of things that torture me long into the night.

So there it is, my own little entry into the 30 Day Horror Movie Challenge. I hope you enjoyed it, I did. Do a list of your own? Or plan to? Drop me a link in the comments, or hell pick your 30 in the comments, I'd love to read them.