The halfway point has been breached! Thus making this the farthest along in Inktober I’ve ever made it while, for the most part, staying on schedule.

All month, so far, the subject matter has been a little on the bleak side, so for Day 16 I decided to lighten the load a bit and went with horror/comedy classic An American Werewolf in London for the prompt “Wild.”

I was first introduced to this film by its VHS box art in various mom-and-pop video stores in the 80’s and 90’s and then to the film-proper by a media studies class during my junior year in high school. The combination of body horror and lore-inspired comedy was something refreshing in the self-serious landscape of 80’s genre horror, and something I wouldn’t encounter again until Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s zombie rom-com Shaun of the Dead.

Day 17 was a tough one for me to land on. The prompt “ornament” definitely elicits a Christmassy vibe, though, I’ve never seen any of the “Silent Night, Deadly Night” films or any iteration of “Black Christmas”.

And while Gremlins will always be my go-to, favorite Christmas season movie, it is… at its core… a horror movie (horror comedy?)

The scene that has always stuck with me (and subsequently one-upped in the spoof-sequel The New Batch) was the scene in which Mrs. Peltzer, armed with only her wits and a kitchen full of culinary appliances, dispatches the first litter of Gizmo kin. The most notable kill being the gremlin pepper-sprayed (with a can of PAM) and stuffed into a microwave and set on high. SPLAT!

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR IT CHAPTER 2: The new adaptations of IT were a mixed bag for me. There was a lot to like on the character development end, though a lot of the “scary” elements were bogged down by oversaturated CGI and on the nose jump scares.

The novel was introduced to me by my grandfather when I was probably 6 or 7 years old. We would vacation in Maine (and it wouldn’t be until decades later that I would realize the Maine/Stephen King connection) but he would always be tucked into a Stephen King novel by the fireplace every night and would give me the best, age appropriate synopsis of the novel with the REALLY interesting cover art.

And yes. This is an image of Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak holding hands.

Monster Squad is a movie that is near and dear to me. It’s basically Universal Monsters’ presents The Goonies.

The prompt was a bit of a stumper for me, so rewatching this underrated B-movie classic set the wheels in motion and I figured the best sling I can correlate is a bow & arrow.

The dispatching of the Mummy in this film was always a fun memory for me, aside from the obvious revelation that Wolfman, indeed, has nards.

It’s a legitimate bummer that the Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration film event “GrindHouse” didn’t perform better on the commercial film stage.

Featuring two “films” by each director and several fake trailers by noted genre filmmakers (Eli Roth and Edgar Wright, to be specific) it was an endurance trial of cinema. Especially considering the stylistic disparity between the two featured films: Film #1 being Planet Terror, a pulpy, gory, cheese fest with go go dancers, zombies (?) and barbecue. Film #2 being Death Proof: a moody, over-dramatic character study of a villainous stunt driver, featuring a thoroughly scene-chewingly stuffed Kurt Russel.

But there it is. Day 20: Tread, tires, Death Proof, car, whatever. I’m terrible at drawing cars, so I felt like I should challenge myself.

Meanwhile: Posts are being made (mostly) daily on my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. Days 21-25 write ups will be arriving soon!