Friday the 13th

It's no secret that I love Autumn, Halloween, and generally anything scary. These reasons are why October is my favorite month. It's gorgeous outside, it's the month with the best holiday in the world, and it's always the perfect month to watch scary movies/read scary books.

Filmmakers and publishers will release more scary material this month than any other. Halloween sells! For fans of the macabre, like myself, we revel in this. I revel in this (along with all the other cool stuff I mentioned that makes October my fave) because it means I can get out and see new scary releases, or read them if I prefer.

Of course, my love of the genre doesn't prevent me from indulging in the classics either. If you'll remember, last year I posted about all the classic horror movies we watched leading up to Halloween, and this year will be no exception. However, I got to indulge in one of my favorite classic scary movies in a whole new way.

There's been a resurgence of movie theatres screening old movies. My best friend and I went to see Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" a few years ago and it was fabulous. Getting to see a classic movie -- that you've only ever seen on a television screen -- breathes new life into it. On top of all the other great stuff about October this year, there's a Friday the 13th in it. This means that, yes, you guessed it, one of my local theatres was showing the originial "Friday the 13th" on Friday the 13th.

My best friend and I went to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to see it, and we thoroughly enjoyed it! It really is a different experience to see a movie in the theatre as opposed to home, and Alamo Drafthouse ensures you have a good viewing experience. They showed old trailers for "Friday the 13th", "Sleepaway Camp" (among others) and screened Jon Lajoie's music video for "A New Beginning", his nod to "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning". They even had a local horror movie podcast host come and do some trivia questions and door prizes.

If that wasn't awesome enough, Alamo has strict movie viewing policies. If you arrive late, you don't get in, and they enforce a strict "quiet zone" during the movie. If anyone violates this, you get one warning before being removed. I love this policy as I get tired of always encountering people talking through entire movies in theatres or hearing people's phones ring. This chain also serves beer and food, and has a tastefully decorated theatre with no snack counters. For more info visit their website.

Alamo routinely shows older movies. I've seen them promote "Kill Bill", the entire Miyazaki collection, and for October, it's a whole month of classic horror films. Even if you don't have an Alamo where you live, see if you can find a theatre that will show classic films. We went to an entirely different theatre to see the special screening of "Rear Window", and that same theatre was showing "Friday the 13th" at midnight on Friday the 13th. I'm really glad we went to Alamo instead.



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