Year 15 Recap: A Season of Shadows and Silver Reels

Thad Ravenhurst
Nov 1
5 min read

October, that faithful friend of chills and candlelight, has come and gone once more, leaving its familiar perfume of smoke and memory in the air. For most, it is a month of costumes, cider, and bonfires. But for one man, it is something far more sacred. Fifteen years have passed since the first of these annual vigils began. What was once a passing whim of a film a night through the dying weeks of the year has become a rite, practiced with reverence and delight. It is a vow renewed each autumn, a covenant between the watcher and the watched.

Each October, the reviewer lights his lantern, takes up his pen, and steps into the labyrinth of horror once more. The corridors have grown familiar over time, yet they still whisper differently each year. He walks not for fame, nor for fear, but for that rare and private joy that blooms only in the dark. To him, horror is not merely a genre but a season unto itself. This is his place, where memory and imagination intertwine, where we laugh at death and remember that life, in all its fragile wonder, is worth the fright.

For fifteen Octobers, he has been our watchman, our chronicler of screams and sighs, a keeper of that dim but persistent flame that flickers between fright and fondness. Some approach Halloween with candy bowls and costumes; he approaches it with curiosity and care. The old phrase “labor of love” is too small for what this has become. It is a pilgrimage. It is the quiet proof that ritual, when done for its own sake, can outlast all passing fashions.

This year’s catalogue bore the air of a seasoned traveler: confident, adventurous, unafraid to stray from the beaten path. The reviewer wandered from cult classics to strange independents, from the salt-stung coasts of Lovecraftian dread to the fluorescent absurdities of animated exorcisms. The range was striking. Some nights brought films that struck true, the kind that draw forth a grin and a muttered “well done.” Others tested the virtue of patience. But that, too, is part of the October covenant: to take the good with the ghastly, to find meaning in the missteps, and to let each imperfect offering remind us of the thrill of the hunt.

The month itself unfolded like a storybook of contrasts. Early evenings gave way to nights heavy with mood and melancholy. Some films haunted the mind long after the credits faded, while others vanished like smoke. There were moments of quiet dread, where terror crept rather than lunged, and others where blood and laughter spilled in equal measure. Each review became a reflection, part diary and part séance, conducted by a man who knows the difference between a scare and a shiver.

The High Harvest

Every season yields its rare fruit. Those rated nine Dr. Chainsaws and above stood as this year’s crown. Sketch and KPop Demon Hunters shared the elusive perfection that critics chase like alchemists after gold. Yet their paths to glory could not have been more different. Special Report: Zombie Invasion whispered its horror through imagination and craft, while KPop Demon Hunters howled with gleeful chaos and color. Weapons followed close behind with 9.5, a somber meditation on guilt and consequence that struck without spectacle. Then came Disturbia and The People Under the Stairs, one a near-perfect modern thriller, the other a carnival of satire and rebellion.

What binds these together is not their subject but their sincerity. None relied solely on blood or shock. They built tension with patience, trusted silence, and treated fear as something earned, not manufactured. In them, we see why this series endures. Fifteen years have honed the reviewer’s palate. He no longer chases novelty for its own sake; he searches for truth inside the fright. The best of Year 15 reminds us that horror, at its highest form, is not about monsters at all, but rather it is about humanity trembling before its own reflection.

The Shadows Beneath

But October would not be October without a few misfires lurking in the fog. Below the pale light of seven Dr. Chainsaws rested the year’s lesser offerings. Eloise wandered the asylum halls without purpose, more a relic of missed opportunities than true terror. When Evil Lurks, though brave in vision, fell to cruelty for cruelty’s sake, its promise devoured by excess. Cthulhu reached toward cosmic revelation and found only confusion. And among the gentler missteps were Spirit Halloween and The Bigfoot Trap, films not without charm but too mild to haunt or linger.

Still, one must not scorn these weaker spirits. Every faltering entry completes the ritual. Without a stumble, there can be no stride. Horror, like faith, thrives on contrast. The brilliance of the high points gleams brighter when set against a few dull stones. Disappointment, too, has its purpose; it sharpens discernment and makes the moments of genuine terror all the sweeter.

Closing Reflections

Year 15 felt less like a checklist of films and more like a grand anthology of an autumn garden, where all manner of odd flora bloomed. There were vines of melancholy, roots of myth, blossoms of absurdity, and the occasional weed that refused to die. The reviewer tended each with the same patience: pruning where needed, admiring where deserved. Through his words, the month became a landscape of moods rather than titles.

His approach remains a marvel of balance. He writes neither as academic nor as fanboy, but as a kind of autumn priest, performing his devotions with wit, warmth, and a wink. There is an affection that runs through every line, even when he wields the critic’s knife. He treats horror not as mere entertainment but as an old companion, one who is eccentric, unpredictable, but endlessly fascinating.

Fifteen years is a remarkable span for any creative ritual. Many ventures fade after a season or two; this one has grown stronger with each turn of the leaves. It endures because it was never about perfection. It was about presence. To sit in the dim glow, to watch something strange, to think, to feel, to write. That is the true spirit of the work. In this annual practice lies a quiet philosophy: that art, like October, must be lived with both awe and humor.

And so, as the final reel spun and the screen dimmed to black, the reviewer laid down his pen. Outside, frost gathered on the windows, and the year’s last leaves whispered against the glass. The chainsaws are oiled, the scores tallied, and the ghosts politely thanked for their service. The house settles into silence, though one suspects he is already thinking ahead, wondering what terrors and treasures next autumn might bring.