SHOCKtober: 368-341

Oooh can you feel it? Change is in the air. Today is not only the day we will break new ground in the list, it is also the day I turned on my heater. I held out as long as I could, though I don't know what I was trying to prove. You know what else is holding out? Movies that received one vote each! Though I do know what they're tying to prove: that they're loved.  

368. A Clockwork Orange -- 1971, Stanley Kubrick

367. A Chinese Ghost Story -- 1987, Siu-Tung Ching

366. A Bay of Blood -- 1971, Mario Bava

365. 28 Weeks Later -- 2007, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

364. Two Thousand Maniacs! -- 1964. Herschell Gordon Lewis

363. 13 Ghosts -- 1960, William Castle

362. 1922 -- 2017, Zak Hilditch

And now, let us begin counting down the films that received two votes each. By the SHOCKtober power vested in me by the state of Blog, y'all voter pairs need to...well, I won't say get married. Nor do you need to even be friends. But should you pass one another on the street, you must give each other a knowing nod while doing the sort of closed-mouth smile-grimace that New Englanders do. I assume you will recognize each other by some kind of mystical mind-thing, as you are the two people on Earth who answered the call of The List and love...whatever movie you both love.

 

361. WNUF Halloween Special -- 2013, LaMartina, Branscome, Jones, Maccubbin, Martin, Menter, And Schoeb

360. What We Do in the Shadows -- 2014, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi

359. What Lies Beneath -- 2000, Robert Zemeckis

358. We Are Still Here -- 2015, Ted Geoghegan

357. Wake in Fright -- 1971, Ted Kotcheff

356. Viy -- 1967, Ershov, Kropachyov, and Ptushko

355. Urban Legend -- 1998, Jamie Blanks

354. Under the Shadow -- 2016, Babak Anvari

353. Troll Hunter -- 2010, André Øvredal 

352. Triangle -- 2009, Christopher Smith

351. Threads -- 1984, Mick Jackson

350. Thirst -- 2009, Park Chan-wook

349. The Stuff -- 1985, Larry Cohen

348. The Stepford Wives -- 1975, Bryan Forbes

347. The Relic -- 1997, Peter Hyams

346. The Red Shoes -- 1948, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

345. The House That Screamed -- 1969, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador

344. The Hitcher -- 1986, Robert Harmon

343. The Hills Have Eyes -- 1977, Wes Craven

342. The Guest -- 2014, Adam Wingard

341. The Fly -- 1958, Kurt Neumann

• YES I know I keep talking about all these series I want to do here at Final Girl, but I really want to cover all the Stepford sequels that are out there. There aren't that many, but they are all made-for-TV and they have incredible casts! ("So why don't you shut up and do one of these series already?" -- you, probably)
• I (re)watched The House That Screamed during the 2023 SHOCKtober festivities thanks to its appearance on an earlier SHOCKtober favorites list and man, it's so good.
• Under the Shadow: underrated!
• A reader on WNUF Halloween Special: "Chris LaMartina made a more believable found footage film with $1,500 than so many others given buckets of cash, it actually looks like it was recorded on a tape! This is one of those things big budget found footage movies never seem to get right; WNUF proves how important this lo-fi quality is to the genre’s aesthetic and overall effectiveness. Most of the movie plays out as a nostalgic throwback to pre-2000s era local Halloween programming: the perfect background vibe while trick or treaters come and go until things take a horrifying turn in the film’s final moments."
• I am not sure if I've ever actually seen The Fly (1958) in its entirety, but I've seen clips--maybe in Terror in the Aisles or something like that, who knows. But I was very young and the whole "Help me" scene really upset me. It didn't scare me, it made me very little-kid sad even though I'm sure it's goofy as all hell. There's a sadness innate to the tale, of course, whether told in 1958 or 1986, but that little clip alone was just one of those things that'll get you sometimes, you know? Especially when you're a softie yoot. 
• And then there's Maude Threads. No U! S! A! The Day After "we'll get through this!" takes on nuclear war on the BBC side of the pond, that's for sure. It's one of the bleakest films I've ever seen, good lawd.