Well, the tallying is done, the numbers have been added, the results you’ve been waiting for (ha) are here…
But before I tell you my magic number– and I hope by now you realize I’m not talking about sex partners– there are just a few points and “disclaimers” I want to mention.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I used Wikipedia as my main source for lists of horror films.
1) these lists are, like all of Wikipedia, peer edited, and by their very nature, not a complete list of every horror title in existence. They are arranged by decades, and in my own observation and tallying, I noticed that even in a given movie series, not necessarily all films were represented (For instance, Cube Zero was on the 2004 list, but the original Cube movie was not in evidence on the 1997 list.)
“Where are we? And who the hell are you?”… That must have been one hell of a party…
2) My final total is likely to be an underestimation rather an overestimation. While I may have falsely counted a film or two, thinking that I saw it, and sometimes I even got the feeling a given film was listed under two different decades, the were probably more instances of films I did not count as “seen”, having not recognized the title, or having forgotten that I’d seen said film.
3) Again, in regards to film series, I counted one hash mark for each film of a given series if I knew without a doubt that I had see them (like all of the Alien films, for instance.) On the other hand, films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th have so many sequels and remakes, that I had trouble remembering which ones I had seen and which ones I hadn’t (and the older the films, the less accurate my memory is.) For this reason, I counted only the ones I was relatively certain I had seen.
Friday the 13th “part 137…”
4) Some films were included in these lists that some might consider “questionable” in terms of their qualifications as “true” horror films. For instance, so-called “horror-comedies,” like Shawn of the Dead and Zombieland were listed (I counted these, ) and even Michael Jackson’s Thriller video was listed, considered a “short film (I did not count this.) To a certain extent, the definition of what constitutes a horror film may vary from person to person.
oh, yes… and 5) As I really doubt I’d recognize any of the films or titles beyond this point anyway, I only counted from present to the 1930’s. As to films I may have started to watch but never finished (if you’ve ever seen The Item you’ll know what I mean; I have a high tolerance for stupidity in the name of entertainment, but even I have my limits…), there weren’t that many of them so it probably doesn’t matter either way, given the margin of error for this little experiment.
And so here it is: the number (roughly) of horror films I have seen in my 31 years…
alienredqueen 