I CAN'T WAIT ANY LONGER

Dudes, look. I have been looking at the calendar for about ten days now, willing it to change from August to September. In case you haven't noticed, this has not worked. I honestly thought my powers over the space-time continuum were stronger, and I feel like I've let us all down. But! Instead of crying into my Riunite, I have decided to be proactive. I will not wait for September to announce my SHOCKtober plans, I will do it now now NOW! August be damned. I hate to be a bully, but it needs to be said: no one likes you, August! You are hot and sticky and you get in the way of the best season, Halloween (which runs September 1-November 30). Get outta here! Go on now, git!

Okay, now that that jerk's gone, let's talk about SHOCKtober the Beautiful.

I put on my ruminatin' wig and thought long and hard about what to do to celebrate. 31 movie reviews? A daily picture post about whatever? Something involving haiku? These are all obviously well thought-out and incredible ideas, but goldurnit, I want a bit more...interactivity. NO that is not a euphemism. What I mean is, social media has connected people and brought The Internet together in more ways than are...well, than are absolutely necessary. Don't get me wrong, it can be nice! But it's also sort of killed the blogging circuit. I know I've talked about it before and it's pretty boring, but I'm gonna talk about it again.

The gravitational pull/tractor beam of a place like Facebook is very strong. I can post a link to Final Girl and I might get a few comments on it on my page as people read the piece and return to Facebook. I get it, it's easier! Instead of creating a separate account to comment, you can just use your FB account, etc etc. The discussion threads here have certainly shrunk as social media grows, but I see the diehards who stick around here and I appreciate them (you) very, very much. Many people don't do a blog readin' circuit anymore, though. Maybe that's because it's more difficult without a Google Reader or some such putting them all in one place. Maybe it's because many blogs have gone silent as writers get burned out (ahem). Who knows? But if someone doesn't catch the link you post as they're scrolling down their Facebook newsfeed, they might not visit your site for quite some time.

Soooooo, the point of all of this is that I wanted to go a little bit old school, you know? Maybe get people involved in SHOCKtober rather than posting "I reviewed this movie today" on social media and hoping folks see it and click though and have something to say. Therefore, for SHOCKtober 2017 I am going to recreate the greatest social experiment I've ever run on Final Girl: SHOCKtober 2010.

You might recall or you might just now be learning that in 2010, I asked readers to email me a list of their 20 favorite horror films. Not the 20 "best" films, but favorites. Maybe they are garbage! Who cares? If you love them, they are great. FAVORITES.

I ended up with a list of over 700 title. Over the course of the month, I counted 'em down from fewest number of votes to the mostest number of votes. (The #1 film, incidentally, was John Carpenter's Halloween.) I had some lists by guest writers, it was all a grand, grand time.

I do not expect to reach such dazzling heights in terms of numbers, as readership just ain't what it used to be back then. But who knows, I'm sure we'll hit some other kind of height. Or maybe a low! I'm excited to find out. I'm also excited to see what kind of changes the seven year itch between lists brings. Maybe you've got some new favorites? After all, at least eight horror movies have been released since 2010, and it's possible that one of them is now one of your favorites. SO LET'S DO THIS. But let's do it according to the rules!

THE RULES

• email me a list of YOUR TWENTY **FAVORITE** HORROR FILMS at stacieponder (at) gmail (dot) (c) (o) (m)
• put "my list" or "list" or "list-o" or something in the subject line so I know what's up
• DO NOT submit your list here in the comments or via Facebook message or Facebook comment or smoke signal or anything like that. EMAIL ONLY BLESS YOU THANKS
• Remember, it doesn't matter if these movies are considered the "best" or classics, they just have to be your faves. Final Girl is strictly a NO JERKS ZONE, and I don't truck with making fun of peoples' loves. Not in my comment section, buster!
• Unless you indicate otherwise, if there is more than one version of a film I will assume you mean the original. So if you mean The Fog (2005) and not The Fog (1980), please tell me.
• Honestly I would be shocked if anyone preferred The Fog 2005 to The Fog 1980, but then Donald Trump is President so there are no more surprises and nothing means anything anymore.
• If you write something like The Saw Series, I am just going to include Saw. Specificity is better!
• You don't have to submit a full list of 20! Maybe you only have one favorite horror film, who am I to judge. But 20 titles is the max.
• The list order doesn't matter! You don't have to rank them.
• You don't have to comment on any of your choices, unless you want to.
• The deadline is the end of Sunday September 24th. After that, submissions will go directly in the ol' garbage, sorry.

That's it! Looks like you better put on your ruminatin' wig and get listin'. Maybe spread the word, would ya, because the more the merrier scarier mua ha ha evil laugh! YEAH SHOCKTOBER RULES!