"11:55, almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before 12:00, just to keep us warm..."

Greetings, fellow assholes, and welcome to HOOPTOBER X: LET'S GET TOGETHER (YEAH YEAH YEAH)!

Three years ago I stumbled upon Hooptober: a horror movie challenge by legendary Letterboxd user Cinemonster. Each year, Cinemonster creates very specific criteria for curating a list of movies to watch and review during the Halloween season.

For the past two years, however, I've struggled with completing the list. I have been seeing a nice young woman from Rhode Island, over a hundred and fifty miles away by car from my humble state of New Jersey, home of Friday the 13th and Clerks (both horror films in some circles - but not mine). Frankly, reader, instead of watching horror movies, I would rather have spent that time hanging out with her on Discord or visiting her in person, and so I did.

Not this year, friends, because she's moved in! That's right - Shelby is now a bona fide Jersey girl, having moved here in April. To celebrate, this year we're not only going to finish the list, but we're watching every film together, in the same room, the way whatever deity or natural force in charge intended.

Usually, I also use Hooptober as an opportunity to complete some sort of personal goal. This year, by the end of Hooptober, Shel and I are going to walk one mile for every film we watch, in addition to the half-mile we walk every day. I also plan on finishing SOME sort of writing project by the end of this. Originally it was supposed to be the graphic novel I've been working on since 2017, but I've been cranking out more for a horror screenplay I have cooking. Whatever the project, I'm going to try to finish it by writing for a minute for every three minutes we spend watching a film.

Updates will come in the form of Letterboxd blog posts. I'll review a film and give an update on how the other goals are going. Shel will (hopefully) also post her reviews as we go along.

The viewing order is worst to best according to Letterbox, but adjusted so that we can watch Night of the Living Dead first and then Dawn of the Dead second (we move bottom to top in this house). We jump around a lot because life is hard and we should be allowed to break the rules more often. If you're reading this list after Hooptober X and are confused by the order it's because I adjust the list as we watch it to reflect our final viewing order.

I should probably mention that as I write this (12:21 AM on August 28th, 2023), Shel is asleep and has agreed to none of this. I even took the liberty of picking out the movies.

Shel, if you're reading this during your break at work tomorrow, I've shared the list of movies with you over Google Sheets. Any movie with a title in black is locked in, but you can replace any of the movies with a title in red - just remember that they also have to fulfill the associated category. When you've approved the list, I'll update the list of movies with notes to reflect which movies fulfill which categories, and which movies you picked.

I love you, and WELCOME TO HOOPTOBER X!

(The fun starts September 13th. You can follow Shelby's progress here. We'll see you on the other side!)