It's coming! SHOCKtober is coming!

Attention good people of The Internet! The time is here! That's right- it's time to begin preparations for next month, which is October, which around these parts is known as SHOCKtober, which is the best month of them all.

I realize I have been terribly remiss in my Final Girl duties. This summer has been...mmm, I don't know. Strange? Awful? Sort of both. But summer is drawing to a close, so I say: fuck summer. It's time for the shelves of my grocery store to be stocked with Candles of Doom and plastic skulls! It's time for horror movies to be everywhere! This ain't no place for summer. So git, summer! Git on now!

I've been mulling over SHOCKtober possibilities for a while now- what to do during this most excellent time? Stately Final Girl Manor is changing location yet AGAIN at the end of this month, and it's going to put me out of some commission for a while. I enjoyed the interactivity of last year's festivities, for sure. Given these factors, again I say- what to do?

Well, my pal Brent Schoonover is smart and he came up with a great idea right away: favorite horror characters. YOUR favorite horror characters- who are they? Let's figure it out!

Now, before you go shouting everything all willy-nilly and chaotic-like, I need to establish some rules to the process, to listen up, maggots!

First, as a thanks to Brent for this stellar interactive idea, go visit his website and look at all of his dazzling art. Seriously, it dazzles. If you really like it, and you really like me, you should get a copy of Mr. Murder is Dead! That's right, I'm straight-up pimpin' it. But dudes, for real, we worked really hard on it- and it's cheap and it's good. So check it out!

Second, the rules of this game: send me an email with the name of your ONE favorite FICTIONAL character in all of horrordom. You don't need to tell me WHY you like this character, unless you want to. Just one! Fictional!

how could you not vote for vampire puppy?

If it's a character without a proper name, that's fine. So, say, "the bear from Grizzly" works. If it's a group of samey-sames, that's fine too- such as, "the troglodytes in the pit in The Pit" is keen. If you want to get specific for characters that have been portrayed by more than one actor, go for it. For example, I'm sure that Frank Langella is everyone's favorite Dracula, but maybe you like Christopher Lee for some reason. Stick to movies, although characters who were born elsewhere and migrated to movies (like Swamp Thing, say) are obviously a-okay.

No character is too big or too small! Do you like a heavy hitter such as Freddy Krueger best? Or are you more of an Annie Brackett type (you probably should be)? The choice is yours! Let me know and, depending on how many results I get, I'll...figure out something to do with all this info. Last year it was crazy, and this will likely be the same.

I don't envy you this task, friendos. I have no idea who my choice will be. Oh, if only Briefcase Woman had been in a horror movie!

Send your email with THE WORD CHARACTER in the subject line and YOUR CHOICE in the EMAIL BODY to stacieponder AT gmail DOT com by SUNDAY SEPT 19. Let's do this!