31 DAYS OF DREW - DAY 15: GHOSTWATCH

Every horrorhound's favorite month is upon us, and to celebrate, I'll be dishing out a personal pick from the genre for every day in October. Some will be obvious and rather unoriginal (sorry that I like movies other people like), while some will be a little more oddball and off-the-wall. Some may even challenge your idea of what constitutes a "horror" movie. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the month with some good movies, even if they aren't ones I recommend!

Today's Pick: Ghostwatch (1992)

Thanks to being a cable-free household, I avoid being inundated with so-called "reality" television every day. I despise the format, as it offers nothing truly compelling while trying to pass itself off as documenting real events and real emotions. The level of fiction that goes into modern "reality" television muddies the creative enjoyment I wish to experience. However, that deceptive reality is exactly what made Ghostwatch such a memorable and effective experience when it originally aired on the BBC back in 1992. People thought it was a real program, and that made the events that took place far more terrifying.

31 DAYS OF DREW - DAY 14: HOUSE

Every horrorhound's favorite month is upon us, and to celebrate, I'll be dishing out a personal pick from the genre for every day in October. Some will be obvious and rather unoriginal (sorry that I like movies other people like), while some will be a little more oddball and off-the-wall. Some may even challenge your idea of what constitutes a "horror" movie. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the month with some good movies, even if they aren't ones I recommend!

Today's Pick: House (1977)

I love the Japanese. Their brazen weirdness has given birth to a culture that is deeply entrenched in bizarre artistic expression. But, sometimes even the Japanese exceed the boundaries of their own strangeness and create something so otherworldly that it nearly defies description. Such is Nobuhiko Obayashi's House (or Hausu to help differentiate it from the 1986 horror/comedy of the same name), a fever dream horror/fantasy that has to be one of the closest attempts at actually capturing the cartoonish and hallucinatory nature of a child's nightmares. That's probably helped by the fact that Obayashi's pre-teen daughter has a story credit on the film. I'll say it again: I love the Japanese.

31 DAYS OF DREW - DAY 13: JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI

Every horrorhound's favorite month is upon us, and to celebrate, I'll be dishing out a personal pick from the genre for every day in October. Some will be obvious and rather unoriginal (sorry that I like movies other people like), while some will be a little more oddball and off-the-wall. Some may even challenge your idea of what constitutes a "horror" movie. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the month with some good movies, even if they aren't ones I recommend!

Today's Pick: Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986)

Even though it's not a Friday, I felt compelled to dedicate the 13th day of 31 Days of Drew to the man who made hockey masks synonymous with slaughtered teenagers: Jason Voorhees. For a while, I debated using this space to make my argument for Friday the 13 Part V: A New Beginning (ignore the fake Jason aspect and it's a great sequel and a good entry in the franchise!), but then I realized that if you're going to watch only one Jason movie this month, Part VI is the only contender.

31 DAYS OF DREW - DAY 12: HOLLOW MAN

Every horrorhound's favorite month is upon us, and to celebrate, I'll be dishing out a personal pick from the genre for every day in October. Some will be obvious and rather unoriginal (sorry that I like movies other people like), while some will be a little more oddball and off-the-wall. Some may even challenge your idea of what constitutes a "horror" movie. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the month with some good movies, even if they aren't ones I recommend!

Today's Pick: Hollow Man (2000)

When the seventies hit, there was a great industry-wide shift happening in the movie business: take B-movie premises and treat them like A-list prestige pictures. It's exactly what happened at Universal during the thirties, and that gave us the first big wave of monster classics. This led to a whole bevy of cinematic treasures, including The Exorcist, Jaws, and Alien. The downside to this was that excellent B-movies began to look shoddy by comparison. That's why I can't help but love Hollow Man. It's not only an inventive "remake" of Universal's own The Invisible Man, it's also a film that's totally aware of its B-movie pedigree and doesn't even try to class itself up. Instead, it just attempts to be the best B-movie it can be, and it works like gangbusters.

31 DAYS OF DREW - DAY 11: NIGHTBREED

Every horrorhound's favorite month is upon us, and to celebrate, I'll be dishing out a personal pick from the genre for every day in October. Some will be obvious and rather unoriginal (sorry that I like movies other people like), while some will be a little more oddball and off-the-wall. Some may even challenge your idea of what constitutes a "horror" movie. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the month with some good movies, even if they aren't ones I recommend!

Today's Pick: Nightbreed (1990)

Horror and fantasy are some of the hardest genres to sell to the public, especially if the property isn't an established entity. Blending the genres together makes things even harder, but that's what visionary writer/director Clive Barker attempted to do with Nightbreed, an adaptation of his own novella, "Cabal." It's too bad that the people in charge of marketing Nightbreed didn't know what to do with it, because there's a very unique and artistic flare to this film that is fairly uncommon in the horror genre.

31 DAYS OF DREW - DAY 10: CREEPSHOW

Every horrorhound's favorite month is upon us, and to celebrate, I'll be dishing out a personal pick from the genre for every day in October. Some will be obvious and rather unoriginal (sorry that I like movies other people like), while some will be a little more oddball and off-the-wall. Some may even challenge your idea of what constitutes a "horror" movie. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the month with some good movies, even if they aren't ones I recommend!

Today's Pick: Creepshow (1982)

Before Batman, Dick Tracy, Sin City, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and other attempts at cinematically capturing the comic book aesthetic existed, there was Creepshow: a masterful interpretation of the classic EC horror comics that ran during the 1950's. Not only did they attempt (and succeed) to bring the tone of the comics to the screen, but also the vivid visual component that was a hallmark of the publication. The best part about this adaptation was that it was being handled by three titans of the genre who all were raised on the comics themselves: George Romero would be directing, Stephen King would be writing the script, and Tom Savini would handle the effects. It's the kind of rare alignment of talent and timing that can only produce a masterpiece, and Creepshow is definitely that.

31 DAYS OF DREW - DAY 9: TOURIST TRAP

Every horrorhound's favorite month is upon us, and to celebrate, I'll be dishing out a personal pick from the genre for every day in October. Some will be obvious and rather unoriginal (sorry that I like movies other people like), while some will be a little more oddball and off-the-wall. Some may even challenge your idea of what constitutes a "horror" movie. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the month with some good movies, even if they aren't ones I recommend!

Today's Pick: Tourist Trap (1979)

The 1970's was a fantastic era for American cinema all around, and the horror genre was no exception. The B-movie went A-list with Steven Spielberg's Jaws, our religious fears were mined with both The Exorcist and The Omen, and another mythical figure took his place in the hall of hallowed monsters in... well, we'll save that for another entry. But, hiding underneath all these mainstream successes are lots of mini-masterpieces waiting to be appreciated by a new generation. One of those happens to be Tourist Trap, an exercise in atmosphere and outright creepiness.