I watched 31 horror movies this month. This is what I learnt

I have watched a horror film every day this month. That means 31 scary movies over just as many days.

The films have run the gamut. I’ve watched slashers such as Black Christmas, and zombie flicks like Train to Busan. I’ve sat through modern-day masterpieces such as When Evil Lurks and cult classics like Cabin Fever. I even watched a horror from 1922 (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror).

It’s safe to say that fitting a feature-length film – let alone a horror movie – into 31 consecutive days is no small feat. With work, a social life and other personal obligations, I quickly found myself scrambling to get through a full movie before the day’s end. By the fourth day, I was streaming snippets on the train during my commute, forcing friends and family into watching something their nervous systems weren’t prepared for, and enduring many late nights of double features.

Let me tell you, watching Shaun of the Dead on a packed train at 7.30am with an already queasy morning belly is not an experience I need to relive.

So, why subject myself to this? It was all in the name of Hooptober, an annual horror movie challenge that takes place during Halloween season.

Created on the film-logging platform Letterboxd by David Hood, known best as “Cinemonster”, the challenge requires participants to curate a film list based on hyper-specific criteria. For example, two of this year’s criteria were “one film from 1932” and one in which “the animals are pissed at us”. The only criteria that remains constant each year is to watch a film by legendary director Tobe Hooper, Hooptober’s namesake.

Beginning as a niche challenge between 100 horror fans in 2014, Hooptober now boasts thousands of participants across the globe.

“It’s a great entry point,” says Hood, based in California. “It’s hard to go into anything in life, whether it’s a room full of people or a social platform, not knowing anyone and trying to make connections … [Hooptober] helps people find others with similar interests and to properly interact.”

Though it began as a way for Hood to wade through the 4000 physical media films he had collected, he quickly realised it meant more than just “catching up” on the genre. It introduces people to horror, connects horror fans and, most importantly, pushes people beyond Hollywood and the traditional Western horror canon.

Each year, Hood includes criteria that nudges participants towards directors outside the US. He also often highlights female directors, and films that were made more than 80 years ago.

“The more we’re exposed to, the more we’re able to put things into greater and broader context,” Hood says. “That makes our experiences with one another or with art that much richer and deeper, and it really gives us a broader understanding of things outside ourselves, our area, our region, our country.”

Hooptober’s growing following has emphasised horror’s burgeoning success. Once a relatively niche genre, it is now common for some horror titles to rake similar amounts at the box office as tent pole films. Just look at Ryan Coogler’s period vampire feature Sinners, which made more than $562 million globally, making it one of the highest-grossing original films this year.

Granted, many of the biggest horror films now are studio titles, meaning they’re somewhat creatively constrained by larger financial forces. However, Hood says this is often a worthy price to pay to get intriguing, original horror ideas onto the big screen.

“Horror is the genre that really, more so than any others, dresses up whatever bullshit is going on in the world at any particular time, and helps you deal with it,” Hood says.

Hood clearly isn’t the only one who believes this. Though horror has long rescued the box office, this year is particularly solid. Scary movies have accounted for 17 per cent of US ticket purchases this year – up from 11 per cent in 2024 and 4 per cent a decade ago, according to Reuters. In Australia, horror has experienced a 79 per cent growth in admissions year-on-year, according to cinema advertising group Val Morgan.

Some of the greatest breakout successes haven’t been major studio titles. They have been smaller-budget indie films from distributors such as A24 and Neon. Last year, the Nicolas Cage film Longlegs became Neon’s highest-grossing film, surpassing the Academy Award winner Parasite. A24’s Talk To Me propelled the Australian Philippou brothers to global fame in 2023.

Even when a horror film’s box office doesn’t look that impressive compared with, say, a Marvel superhero title, it could still technically have made a significant profit given the smaller budgets most horrors generally require. Zach Cregger’s Weapons grossed more than $411 million globally this year, about seven times its production cost ($58.5 million). Meanwhile, The Fantastic Four: First Steps made far more money (about $799 million), but grossed only about 2.6 times its production budget.

This isn’t the case for all horrors. Hood notes that some titles, especially those held by bigger studios, have become quite one note. Blumhouse – one of the most famous horror studios and distributor of hits including Get Out, Insidious and M3GAN – has been struggling to reach its earlier box office heights. Last year, Night Swim and Afraid tanked, and this year, M3GAN 2.0 missed the mark, while Wolf Man couldn’t even turn a profit.

“Those kinds of movies aren’t going to hold up terribly well when they’re hanging an hour and a half on one gimmick. Once you know the gimmick, it’s hard to revisit,” Hood says. “The reason we still watch The Thing or Halloween now is because there’s depth to them, there’s character development, there’s craftsmanship.”

But it’s because of these occasional modern-day duds that we exact so much enjoyment from rewatching horror classics – from the earliest recorded horror, The House of the Devil (1896), to 1970s golden-era classics such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I certainly felt this way while wading through dozens of horrors this month. While it meant more late nights than I could fathom, an increased skittishness in everyday life and hours scouring streaming platforms to find rare movies from the 1930s, Hooptober exposed me to films I wouldn’t have considered before, expanding my knowledge and appreciation of this incredibly varied genre.

A few highlights included the Argentinian horror 4x4, a claustrophobic nightmare that came before this year’s much less inspired US remake, Locked. The 1941 gothic horror The Wolf Man was also a favourite, revealing how Hollywood’s depiction of the werewolf began.

Of course, I was bound to dislike something on such a long list. For me, this was White Zombie (1932), credited as the first zombie film, but an incredibly uncomfortable 21st century watch given its racially insensitive portrayal of Haitian Vodou and its use of blackface.

So, would I participate in Hooptober again? Yes, but not over 31 days. I want to enjoy the films I watch, not feel as if I’m completing homework. But I guess they don’t call it a “challenge” for nothing.

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