James Felix McKenney and His Halloween Film List (sort of)

As part of our celebration of all things horror in the month of October, we’re having some of our favorite filmmakers, writers, bloggers, and so on write guest blogs for us all month talking about their favorite things in the world of horror and/or Halloween.

James Felix McKenney and a robot arm

Today’s blog comes from writer/director/producer James Felix McKenney. McKenney is the man behind CANNIBALLISTIC!, AUTOMATONS, and SATAN HATES YOU to name a few. His most recent feature, HYPOTHERMIA starring Michael Rooker, is a creature feature that was recently released on DVD.

My Halloween Film List (this is actually not a list at all)

I just finished rearranging my Netflix queue for about the fifteenth time in the last three weeks. I'm usually not so obsessive, it's just that once the leaves begin to turn and tumble to the ground, I get that itch to make sure that my October holiday viewing schedule is absolutely perfect.

Actually, calling spending a few minutes here and there clicking a computer mouse "obsessive" is a gross exaggeration, especially if you know anything of my Halloween movie history.

As a kid, I absolutely loved monsters. This began at the age of three or four after my parents took me to an outdoor screening of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN at a local park. I absolutely adored the Frankenstein Monster and dressed up as him for Halloween at least two years in a row.

I continued to be a fan of movie monsters, horror and science fiction. Halloween never failed to renew my love for the classic monsters and I would always make a point of picking up a package or two of the cheap monster makeup kits from the discount store so I could create all sorts of weird deformed faces in the mirror.

This was before every house had a DVD player or even a VCR. My family didn't have cable TV. So catching monster and horror films took a lot of scanning the TV listings in the local paper and then making sure you were in front of the television when the movies came on, usually on Saturday afternoons. I have very fond memories of my first viewings of THE BLACK CAT with Karloff and Lugosi, THE FLY and THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD. I especially recall Hammer's DRACULA:  PRINCE OF DARKNESS, portions of which I had to watch from the next room because I was so scared. And this was in broad daylight on a 10 inch black and white screen! I was a very sensitive kid.

The years went by and my love of Halloween only grew. I used to become angry when TV stations screened any film during the month of October that wasn't horror. I mean, what else would anyone watch during the month of the greatest holiday of the year?

Eventually the VCR came along and I finally had the opportunity to watch all of those films that I had read about over the years but never had a chance to catch on the TV or see on the big screen. This opened up a world of possibilities. Suddenly, there were so many things available! So I started making lists.

I would usually start compiling and updating my annual Halloween horror movie list in late August or early September, the second there was a slightly chilly day that hinted that autumn was on its way. There wasn't IMDB, Amazon or even that many horror film books back then, so I would spend literally days, sometimes weeks, going page by page through standard movie reference guides looking to discover new scares.

What a tall man.

Every year, I would find new books and new editions of ones I had already scrutinized, looking for any films classified as "horror" and any credits I had previously missed for my favorite performers; Christopher Lee, Vincent Price (with both of whom I happen to share a birthday), Peter Cushing, Boris Karloff, Barbara Steele and eventually Angus Scrimm, a man who I would one day have the great fortune to call my friend.

The list continued to be updated, modified and amended. Although films I had seen were regularly crossed off, it never stopped growing as I discovered new titles faster than I watched the old. I often shared the list with my friends, many of whom found the movies on there to be too odd or obscure.

The last list that I compiled is dated 2005. With the help of all of the film and horror sites out there, I probably threw it together in an hour or two. Looking it over, I'm surprised to see that there are a few films amid the dozens listed that I still haven't seen. Well, there's no time like the present, so I suppose this is the year to check out those last few unwatched treasures. It is October, after all.

Now if you'll excuse me, Netfilx has just added a number of Mario Bava classics to its Watch Instantly selection. Sure, I already own them all on DVD, but I have to add them to my queue anyway. I just can't help myself.

-James Felix McKenney

Be sure to visit James at MonsterPants.net and follow him on Twitter @MonsterPantz