A rare event is taking place that most horror fans are overlooking, I think. Usually, the horror genre gets one, maybe two, big movies per year. They’re usually thrown into late summer slots to capitalize off whatever scraps the blockbusters have left for them to gobble up, or put into October timeslots to take advantage of Halloween. But something really cool is happening right now and it’s an event that many horror fans should be looking at with excitement: three anticipated horror films back-to-back-to-back.

Last weekend saw the release of The Wolfman, an iconic character given his own big-budget spectacle of a film. It’s good. Regardless of what you have been reading on all of the horror websites who seem to want to revel in its inevitable failure. I give a mini-review of the film on the latest Splattercast (ep. 170) and I encourage all of you to at least check out a matinee before it’s unceremoniously shuffled out the door. It’s the kind of movie that makes seeing monster movies on a big screen so much fun.

Then, this weekend sees the release of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island. Like The Wolfman, this was originally set to be released last year but was pushed back. The trailer makes this movie look insanely amazing. And it’s Scorsese, so you know there’s going to be care and love brought to genre material (Anybody looking for some Scorsese genre work should check out his remake of Cape Fear, yowza!). It’s another horror film that demands a theater viewing and I absolutely can’t wait to see it this Saturday afternoon.

Then, next weekend, we’ve got the remake of George Romero’s The Crazies. People forget that Romero did an “infected” movie way before geeks started having internet flame wars about whether infected were zombies or not. Honestly, Romero’s version wasn’t all that great. It’s got some cool ideas and imagery, but it is one of those films that is hampered more so by its low budget than not. In other words, it’s a case example of a film that could really use the refinishing and polishing that a remake allows. Even if it isn’t great, the trailer makes it look like a fun time and I’ll be lining up for that one as well.

So what you have here is three straight weekends of awesome or potentially awesome horror flicks. This doesn’t happen very often for our genre. Horror is disrespected a lot of the time and we usually have to take what we can get. But here’s an example of our genre getting the marquee three straight weekends. Fans are always talking about wanting Hollywood to spend a little more time on horror and get some more releases out there for us. Well, here’s your chance. Make an event of it. Check out The Wolfman, Shutter Island, and The Crazies back-to-back-to-back. And feel good about it.

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