Hoop-tober
5 years ago letterboxd user Cinemonster started a 31-day horror movie marathon and it’s been going ever since. It’s not an entirely new thing. October horror movie marathons have been around forever, relatively immortalized in the form of cable TV programming, competing for ratings and playing whatever they had the license for (or whatever they damn well pleased) begging for you to flip the channel to their station. But in the past couple decades home video marketing has become a lot more eclectic, niche-driven and, well, cooler.
What we have now are more personalized releases of films that either had terrible releases squished onto one disc with 7 other bargain movies or never got the treatment past VHS due to lack of interest. Unprecedented access has been granted to film freaks like you and me with releases of films that would likely never have even seen the light of day were it not for us sick weirdos. And what do you do with a gift like that? You buy it, you share it, but most of all you program a 31-day movie marathon with “quick easy rules” that limit what you can choose to watch, but still allows enough wiggle room to provide you with a wide variety of choices. Enter Hooptober.
6 years ago a list was made, entitled Scream for Hoop-Tober: I AM The Old Dark House: A Challenge for Me and You. In it a list of rules are proposed, nothing too crazy or specific by any means:
-there must be 31 horror films
-have to have at least one film from 5 different decades.
-have at least 5 films from one director OR 3 from 2 directors.
-have films from at least 4 countries.
-review them all.
At the heart of these rules is the reason for the naming convention: There must always be a Tobe Hooper movie. Most of the above incidental rules have carried over to Hooptober in 2020, but have gotten a little more complicated:
6 countries
6 decades
7 2nd films of franchises
4 body horror films
2 films from this year
3 disease based films
The highest rated horror film from the 50s that you haven’t seen and can access.
1 film that is set entirely inside one location
1 Invisible Person film
1 Non Dracula Hammer Film
2 films with a black director or predominantly black cast or lead.
1 film with a movie theater in it.And 1 Tobe Hooper Films [sic] (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)
-review them all.(eek)
Whew.
There’s still plenty of room to choose here, and if you’re reading this before October, chances are you still have time to scrounge your list together, create a Letterboxd account (you’re going to need one to keep track of all this stuff) before you get to it.
A few years after the first Hooptober, another semi-hyper-specific marathon curated by Scarecrow Video operating out of Seattle emerged, without the need to journal or review each and every movie you watch. And that depends on what you enjoy.
During the current pandemic Scarecrow Video has expanded their footprint to something like 17 states for mail-order rental. Definitely something to shake a 6–10 foot stick at. Worth checking out on their website so you can participate in either Hooptober or Scarecrow’s Psychotronic Challenge.
Or, you could be as insane as me and do both at the same time.