The State of All Things Horror: Where We've Been, Where We're Going

The start of the year is always the time to make resolutions that quickly get forgotten about two weeks into the year, until another new year rolls around and the time comes to dust off the same tired pledges when it’s time for a new calendar.  Arbitrary date and propensity to ignore these things aside, the start of the year is a good time to reflect on where we’ve been and where I’d like to go with All Things Horror.  I figure if I make this public, I’m going to have to work all that much harder to realize the listed goals or run the risk of exposing my complacency.

The beginning of 2011 found us in a weird place. A change in my bank coupled my own stupidity cost us our original domain. After registering us as a “.net” the long, arduous struggle of informing our readers we hadn’t gone away began in earnest. Many thanks to fellow horror sites that gave us a mention and directed people back to us. While losing the domain and seeing our hit counter plummet was infuriating it was also liberating in a way. I could stop worrying about tossing content online at all costs and just write what came to mind-no one was reading us anyhow. By springtime our audience seemed to find us, and we’ve managed to grow our readership to about four times what it was in 2010.

Our monthly screening series took the biggest hit when we changed domains. We had a few amazing programs with two late in the year that spring to mind. After partnering with Heidi Martinuzzi and Shannon Lark of the Viscera Film Festival, Chris put together an amazing program that combined over two dozen short films, a documentary and short film retrospective of the immensely talented Montreal film maker Maude Michaud (which included the lovely director in attendance for a Q&A) and a feature film for a packed weekend schedule. We followed that up with Shudderfest which boasted four of my favorite films of the year over two nights. Two of the films we’ve screened in the past year (The Corridor & Dead Hooker in a Trunk) went on to score distribution from IFC Midnight. On the other hand we struggled to draw crowds some nights, and my attempt to expand to midnight programming in Salem was a disaster and a one-and-done failure. I felt like I got lazy during portions of the year, and instead of seeking out films I felt passionate about, chose from whatever pile of films landed in my lap, and didn't promote the events with the same fire I had our first twelve months. Thankfully, along with Chris (who picked up the ball that I, frankly, dropped) we took some programming chances and aside from our special events brought art house horror like Burning Inside, Seeking Wellness, The Taint and Wound to Boston audiences.

With 2011 wrapped up, 2012 is shaping up to be a “shit or get off the pot” year for me and the site. Will it continue to be a nice little blog that I update a handful of times a week in between wasting time on Skyrim or reading gadget and pop culture sites? Or will I dedicate the time I keep telling myself I want to in order to grown this into something larger. We’ve been fortunate to come to know a handful of dedicated filmmakers, creators and like-minded sites, and I’d like to continue to build on those relationships. 2011 found a number of sites in my daily reader fade in to oblivion, and I'd like to do my best to avoid a similar pathway to lethargy. 

With all that said (and if you made it this far, thank you for allowing me a moment of self indulgence), listed below are the goals/additions I’d like to see added to this site in the coming year:

Improve the design of the site Blogger is a good program for getting off the ground, but can also be very limiting. I have some rudimentary programming skills and an idea as to what I’d like the site layout to be. I’d like to make it much easier for people to find archived reviews, interviews, editorials and would love make it easier to scroll through and click on the latest posts.

Add a multimedia component Between the sites we’ve grown friendly with and the filmmakers and creators we’ve come to know, there’s no reason I couldn’t put together a bi-weekly at worst podcast that covers a far flung range of horror related awesomeness.

Add a team of contributors to the site When I came up with the idea for All Things Horror in the summer of 2009, the idea was to band together with a group of friends that loved horror and come up with a forum where we could express our views on the genre. Aside from the wonderful Chris Hallock, that idea never came to pass. When we started the site I thought getting 100 hits a day would be a big deal, now we’re more likely to pull in over a thousand when we post new material.

The fact remains that no one has come up with a way to stuff more than twenty fours in to a day, and between my family and work commitments, and Chris’ multiple artistic pursuits (you’re going to a film from him in the not too distant future and you’re going to love it) we don’t always have the time to devote to the site that I’d love to see. If we go more than two to three days without content, I get a bit panicky and hastily try to throw content up that doesn’t always meet the standards I’ve set for my work.

We’ve been lucky to secure the occasional guest post from fine folks (I can’t wait to get KendraWithAnH’s Human Centipede II review). If we could secure four to five occasional contributors that gave us two posts a month, it would take a tremendous amount of pressure off. I’ve made no bones about my admiration for the site Brutal As Hell. I see Marc Patterson’s site as the model I’d like to emulate. There’s a strong editorial presence that gives the site its direction and voice but there’s also crack team of writers that contribute a diversity of opinions.

Increase the scale of our screening series We’ve already lined up a half dozen great movies to take us in to the spring, and we have something fantastic planned for the fall. I’m getting back to the mindset where if don’t love a movie, we don’t screen it.  I’ve set aside chunks of time to start combing other regions festival lists, watch trailers and email directors about obtaining films for consideration. My only regret about our next three months worth of events is we can only do one a month, because we’re jammed with goodness for the first chunk of the year. 

With the bar-setting out of the way, let's go ahead and end things with some lyric appropriate dance off material: