PopGap Diary: Octoblur 2022
Written by dorrk |
Mother of mercy, is it Octoblur time again? The time of year when I let loose on all of the horror movies I've resisted watching during the other 11 months of the year?
Not that I've been fasting: 2022 has been a great year for new horror, with theatrical releases like X and Pearl (the latter of which features one of the best horror performances in decades), the popular Barbarian and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and the batshit effects of Alex Garland's Men. (My favorite theatrical release of the year so far is not horror, but shares some of the same Venn diagram real estate, Robert Eggers' The Northman.) There have also been fantastic streaming options, such as the ruminative Macedonian movie You Won't Be Alone, the brooding mystery Broadcast Signal Intrusion, and the devastating Danish production Speak No Evil (now playing on Shudder). Not too shabby! But even though I hungrily partook in these disturbing delights, I do not watch nearly as much horror as I want to throughout the ye/ar, because I hoard all manner of unseemly trash for the month of October, whereupon I binge it until I burst, or it becomes a blur. Or both.
In the past year, I went down some movie rabbit holes about cults and conspiracies, mostly of the political or criminal variety. I intentionally saved the horror-ific flavors of that genus for this Octoblur: cults, occult conspiracies, murderous hippie sects, killer kids, weird religious deviants... all the folks that make for the liveliest Halloween parties. Hopefully, I'll encounter some of each. In movies, not at Halloween parties.
Now, my methods aren't exact — I try not to know too much about most movies before I watch them — so some may not fit the bill exactly or even remotely. I am also not exclusive, and plan to cheat on this main theme of Octoblur 2022 with the usual flirty consorts: foreign horrors, slasher movies, Hall-O-Ween-themed exploits, some Hall-O-Fame revisits, and miscellaneous odds-and-ends that caught my eye in obscure movie corners of the internet or my ear on podcasts like All the Colors of the Dark or Pure Cinema.
Once again, I doubt this year's Octoblur exploits will live up to past binges. Who has the fricking time to watch (and review) 40+ horror movies in one month? Yes, I usually end up answering that question at the end of each Octoblur with a "Me, I guess." But it has to stop somewhere. Will I exhibit an unusual measure of sanity in Octoblur 2022, or is the lunatic running the asylum horror movie festival?
