This is my second time participating in Hooptober, which is put on every year by Letterboxd user Cinemonster as a marathon for the latter part of September and all of October to enjoy a stream of Horror movies. Even though this is my second time doing this Horror-themed marathon, this is still far from the type of stuff I tend to watch (as I don't watch a ton of horror in general). As of the start of this marathon, I had 1,337 feature films in my Watchlist, but only 39 of them had the Horror genre tag attached to them on Letterboxd (down from 89 last year, since I watched most of them for last year's marathon). Likewise, of the 3,627 feature films I had rated prior to this marathon, Letterboxd only classified 270 of those as Horror.

So even though there are a decent amount of movies I would say I like that are Horror films, they still make up only a small percentage of what I tend to flock towards. Like last year, I guess we'll see if I can make it an entire six weeks watching not much else outside of the genre. Much like last year, I had to search outside my Watchlist in order to find several movies to help meet all the criteria of the challenge. Unlike last year, however, not all of the rest of these were in my Watchlist prior to making my list (only about a dozen were). I will be ranking them as I go, and reviews can always be found in the Notes section. Feel free to join along if you like, so see below (or the official page linked to above) for the rules for the challenge.

Rules:

6 Countries (X)
8 Decades (X)
2 Insect-centered Films (X)
1 Film Set in Space or the Future (X)
2 Animated Films (X)
1 Bloodthirsty Old Person/People Film (X)
2 1970's Regional US Films (X)
The Worst 1990's Horror Sequel You Haven't Seen (X)
1 German Silent Film (X)
5 Films From Select Directors* (X)
2 Christopher Lee Films (X)
1 Film With a Musician or Band In It (X)
1 Stephen King Adaptation Reboot (X)
1 Lon Chaney Film (X)
1 Tobe Hooper Film (X)

Note: Fourteen of these movies will not be first-time watches (#18-31 upon initial list creation). I tried to make sure most of the ones that were meeting criteria were first-time watches, but since I didn't have as much stuff in my Watchlist this year for Horror movies I thought I would add on some Horror movies I have been wanting to revisit and review. Also, I should be able to complete all the criteria with the first twenty-one films (as of the initial list creation time), so I will probably prioritize those first. Everything after that is technically a bonus film, so depending on how much stuff is coming off the Criterion Channel in October I may just extend this challenge as long as I feel like continuing with the theme in order to continue getting rid of some stuff from my Watchlist that I don't generally prioritize. Unwatched films at the end will be deleted, though if I finish all of these before the end of October I may add additional ones to finish out the month.

*David Cronenberg, Ti West, Bill Rebane, Charles B. Pierce, William Grefe and/or Joy N. Houck Jr.