Winter is a rough time, to put it simply. Seeing the sun set every day earlier and earlier fills me with dread. Having to grab a jacket at the last second for a quick run to the grocery store elicits pitiful groans. What makes it worse is that I should be excited for this. You always remember when you’re a kid waiting on that first big snow that will get you out of school for a week. My birthday is in November, I should be getting excited for that. I’m in my last semester of college, I should be excited for that. I’m not.

The past three Octobers have put me in very different places. In 2020 I spent half the month in quarantine after my roommate tested positive for COVID-19, at my family’s farm. Less than stellar internet connection meant keeping up with virtual classes was a challenge, in a time where course demands were starting to increase due to midterms. I’d spend hours upon hours staring at homework and textbooks, more than I ever normally did. I don’t know if it was the isolation tricking me or if my courseload really did grow exponentially in that time. One fond memory is clipping releasing Visions of Bodies Being Burned. I was up after midnight working on a paper, realized it had dropped and stopped everything to listen to it. I was able to walk in the woods alone for the first time in years. The fresh air felt like an antidote. October 2021 was nowhere near as narratively satisfying, but it was the kind of seasonal depression moment where everything feels grayer than it should. I was in a long relationship that was slowly coming to its inevitable end, working a university job I hated with people exploiting my work ethic day by day. This year I’m navigating the end of my undergraduate career, and I spend more time alone than I ever have before. One thing has been consistent: Hooptober.

Hooptober is an annual Letterboxd movie marathon created by Pittsburgh restaurateur David Hood, better known online as the Cinemonster. Named in honor of Texas horror maestro Tobe Hooper, Hooptober has the unique appeal of being a film festival you program from your own home. Everyone comes up with their own list based on a handful of rules. This started out as fairly simple, the rules for year one are as follows:

-there must be 31 horror films
-have to have at least one film from 5 different decades.
-have at least 5 films from one director OR 3 from 2 directors.
-have films from at least 4 countries.
-review them all.

Every year things get a little more complex, with unique rules thrown in every round. This year your list must include (among other things) a remake of a Stephen King movie (I chose 2013’s Carrie), a movie with bloodthirsty old person (The Taking of Deborah Logan) and a poorly received 90s sequel (Jason Goes to Hell). Everyone must have a Tobe Hooper film. Not sure if this is an unspoken rule, but that’s the one I always save for last. Hooptober starts in the middle of September, the goal is to have all your films watched by Halloween. The choose your own adventure film festival started with around a hundred Letterboxd users officially participating, with around 700 joining in in 2020. That’s not even counting people who did it by themselves without submitting their list, as Hood keeps an index of participants who link their lists under his own. Hooptober 2020 took me until near the end of November to complete, as towards the end of that semester I was in a complete depressive slog. But Hooptober Se7en helped me discover one of my favorite movies, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Hooptober Ocho brought Julia DuCornau’s Titane and Cronenberg’s The Brood into my all time list. We’ll see if this year holds any all timers, but so far I’ve only had a couple come close.

Every year Hooptober becomes harder and harder to focus on. I often find myself intentionally picking movies I don’t think look that great so I won’t have to put that much effort into writing about them. I come home from a long day of work and class and the last thing I want to do is watch a movie. I didn’t used to be this way. I used to watch three movies a day! I’d watch a movie at home, go to the theater, come home and watch another movie before bed. I’d turn on 12 Angry Men while I made breakfast, and wouldn’t stop watching whatever I could think of until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. What the hell happened to me? Why is something I enjoy so hard to do? This isn’t me being all flowery and rhetorical. I just don’t have an answer. Maybe I genuinely don’t enjoy this as much as I used to.

I feel myself getting older. I turn twenty-three next month: an age I frankly never thought I would reach. Even as I write this it boggles the mind. Thinking about how young and how old I am at the same time fills me with dread. Hell, part of the reason I’m publishing this here is to try to stave off this absence of merit by resurrecting this blog with no subscribers. I spend most of my time feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything, and still have so much farther to go before I can accomplish anything.

I came into work this morning and it was 36 degrees outside. My mother sent me a picture of snow in our backyard back home. I am not ready for the cold. But the cold always brings so much potential for new things when it finally subsides. Time to put my coat on and weather the year’s storm.