October, Shmoctober – UW66

This is a reprint of the letter from the editor in Unwinnable Weekly Issue Sixty-Six. You can buy Issue Sixty-Six individually now, or purchase a one-month subscription to make sure you never miss an issue!

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Hi there,

We’re well into the spooky season now.

Everyone is talking about their Halloween costumes. There are horror movies on TV. I hear Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” slightly more often at the convenience store. The leaves are changing, the nights are longer. Flannel is once again comfortable.

There is evidence in the apartment, too. I dragged out my antique papier-mâché jack-o’-lanterns. The wife is more willing to watch horror movies on TV. There are gourds laying around, both the old ones I dried out last year and fresh ones from our farm share, a small delight after being drowned in leafy greens all summer.

We’re even having a small werewolf-themed Halloween gathering tomorrow night. The Landmark Loew’s theater, an old, partially restored movie palace around the block, is showing a lycanthropic marathon of Werewolf of London, The Wolf Man and An American Werewolf in London. Ahead of the show, we’ve invited people over to eat, drink, play Werewolf and listen to my ridiculous werewolf Spotify mix. Should be a good time.

October has always felt right in a way that other stretches of the year don’t. The atmosphere matches my temperament. Not to mention that it is usually gratifying to see the rest of the world embrace monsters and horror, at least for a couple weeks.

This year, though, it feels like something is missing. Same way as when the charm started to rub off Christmas. I was pretty bummed out about that, for about five minutes.

Then I looked at my bookshelf and realized how many horror collections and anthologies I’ve torn through in the last couple weeks and how many more I’ve read in the course of the last year. A quick check at my list of horror movies, both those I’ve watched and those still in the queue, confirmed my suspicions.

I am consuming horror at a rate and consistency that is exponentially greater than any other point in my life. October and Halloween don’t feel special this year because I took a page out of Ministry’s book and made every day a bit like Halloween.

Honestly, it is pretty hard to be bummed out about that.

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Our annual Halloween mix will be out next week, be sure to check it out! In the meantime, we’ve got four others you can listen to: All Hallow’s Evil, Music of the Night, Reel Terror at the Grindhouse and Ghastly Stories from Beyond the Grave.

If you need recommendation for horror movies, check out Unseen, my list of lesser known recent horror films. It will be getting an update on Monday.

We don’t have a straight up Halloween issue this year, but expect plenty of spooky surprises, including a ton of writing by me. I don’t really know how I got on the hook for that, but October’s dark gods need their adulations.

Like every proud parent, I love all the issues of Unwinnable Weekly equally, but every once in a while, the quality of writing and thematic threads come together in a particularly satisfying way. This is one of those weeks. Heather Alexandra leads off with a look at the treatment of urban art in videogames. Anastasia Valens analyzes the use of death as a mechanic in Nuclear Throne. Rob Haines, delivers a fantastic bit of writing in our cover story, examining The World Ends With You. Finally, John Wm. Thompson revisits the curious case of Knights of the Old Republic 2.

Hope you enjoy! Have a great weekend!

Stu Horvath,
Jersey City, New Jersey
October 22, 2015