Welcome back, ghoulies!
By now, you’ve had time to read our previous post featuring the first hints at the theme for this year’s Halloween Horrors Contributor Series; the central concept unifying all the movies that are discussed during the series. In that post, I featured a list of 45 fake “titles”, promising that one of them will be your theme for this year’s Halloween Horrors series. If you happened to miss that post, here’s a link to help get you caught up. I would highly recommend doing so before proceeding with this entry as it’s quite central to what we will be discussing today. Halloween Horrors 2025: Writers Wanted! (+ Theme Teaser)
However, before we get to the grand reveal, I would like to announce one change to the rules for this year’s Halloween Horrors series. In fact, it’s one of the series’ oldest rules. This year, two (and only two) contributors will be allowed to discuss the same film! I have always prevented two contributors from discussing the same film in the past as I believed that refraining from repeated topics would not only keep each entry in the given year’s series unique and offer readers more variety, but also encouraged potential contributors to watch and/or discuss a film that they might normally not consider. This year, I do feel that there is valid cause to allow two varying viewpoints of the same film… which will become evident later.
I should also remind all parties that the Halloween Horrors series “officially” begins on the morning of October 1st. New entries, each from a different contributor, will be posting on this website throughout the month. As always, the hope is that we will receive enough submissions to post a new entry each and every day of the month! (Granted, this has never happened, but we’ve come damned close!) As such, this means that 28 contributor spots will be available, with my family and I claiming the remaining three. Links to each submission will be shared on the Horror And Sons Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The Halloween Horrors series was created with the hopes of bringing people together to share their thoughts and opinions on Halloween and the multitude of films that help them celebrate the season. In those regards, I do believe that the series has generally succeeded. That said, I do still ask that all contributors please try to share at least a couple of the entries written by other contributors on their own social media accounts.
And now, the reveal….
..but first, let’s look at the 45 titles one more time. One of these is YOUR Halloween Horrors theme…
…one of them is mine…
… and the rest belong to other contributors. That’s right! They are all themes for this year’s Halloween Horrors series. Let’s discuss how we determine which one is YOURS.
This year, Halloween Horrors contributors will each be given their own personal “theme” chosen from the 45 fake “titles” listed above. The best part? I’m not telling you what it is until AFTER it’s yours!! But wait…. the fun’s only just beginning! Each of the 45 “titles” listed above is actually a reference to a sub-genre of horror, a commonly used trope or motif, or something else involving horror films. Some are even about stars and directors. I can more easily explain this concept by revealing 3 of the themes that have been selected prior to this reveal. Needless to say, these 3 specific themes are now no longer available.
“Grandma Got Ripped To Shreds Last Evening” – It may have been too obvious if I called the theme “Little Old Lady Got Mutilated Late Last Night”, especially if (like most people) you only know that one Warren Zevon song. This theme was “werewolf movies” or films prominently featuring a werewolf.
“Keep Looking Up!” – A popular catchphrase of astronomer Jack Horkheimer, TV’s “Star Hustler”. This theme was Space Horror/Aliens.
“Weird Sisters” – Any Shakespeare fans? This was a reference to the three witches featured in “Macbeth”. If you guessed movies featuring a witch, you were correct.
Once you have your theme, you will be allowed to write about any film of your choosing, so long as it fits within that theme. Now, before you get too excited and start trying to decipher the hidden meaning to each title, I should probably let you know that more than a few are deliberately misleading. So, yeah… have fun with that!
And now, the boring part….
RULES
To claim your “title” for this year’s series, email us at horrorandsons@yahoo.com stating the “title(s)” that you would like as your theme OR if you would prefer your “title” randomly selected. Please use “Halloween Horrors 2025” in the subject line of your email. YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO CLAIM YOUR THEME STARTING AT 11PM EST/8PM PST ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 29th!!! NO CLAIMS WILL BE ACCEPTED BEFORE THAT TIME!! NO CLAIMS WILL BE ACCEPTED VIA FACEBOOK OR INSTAGRAM!!
Claiming of “titles” will happen on a “first come, first served” basis, with emails looked at in the order in which they are received. You may either claim a “title” of your choice OR, for our more daring contributors, may have one random assigned to you. Once a title/theme has been assigned to you, no other contributor will be allowed to claim that theme. Those who wish to claim their own title/theme as opposed to having it randomly assigned are asked to submit a list of 3 choices, arranged in order of preference, just in case someone has already taken your theme of choice by the time your email has been received. If all 3 of your choices are already assigned to other contributors, I will contact you and let you choose again.
As Horror And Sons is only one person, please understand that there may be delays in responding. I try my hardest to make this run as smoothly as possible, but as previous years have proven, mistakes and oversights can and do occasionally happen. I do apologize in advance for any miscommunications, mishaps, or other technical difficulties.
All submissions MUST be received by 11:59pm EST/8:59pm PST on Friday, Sept 26th. Any contributors who fail to submit their entry by the deadline will be excluded from this year’s series. You will also potentially be excluded from future Halloween Horrors series events. I do apologize if this seems somewhat short-tempered, but as the series does take time to put together and prep for posting, deadlines are imperative.
All submitted entries must be at least 600 words long, but you are free to make your article as long and comprehensive as you wish. That said, I do recommend keeping your article/review under 3,000 words as articles/reviews longer than that have statistically under-performed in the past. Any entries received with less than the 600-word minimum will not be included in the series. They will be sent back to you, but you will be permitted until the submission deadline to resubmit.
Please include any images that you would like used in your submitted entry as attachments, otherwise I will supply the images at my discretion. If you wish to have your submitted images placed in specific sections of your article/review, please notify me when you submit your entry. Otherwise, I will place them as I see fit.
I will once again be writing intros to all of the submissions received. I do ask that any information that you may want disclosed about yourself be included when you send in your finished entry. If you are affiliated with another media outlet (websites, podcasts/webcasts, social media outlets, whatever), please let me know so that I can not only inform our readers, but also help promote any projects you may have planned/scheduled for the Halloween season as well! You are also more than welcome to not disclose any information at all. Please be forewarned that in these instances, I will be forced to just make up shit about you.
Please be advised that Horror And Sons reserves the right to edit any typos or errors in your submission. However, we do sincerely hope that you make every effort to submit a piece that has little to no need for editing.
While I do encourage all contributors to speak freely and openly, I do ask that writers refrain from questioning or bashing the film “tastes” and preferences of other writers, readers, and horror film fans. Let people enjoy what they enjoy.
That’s everything, ghoulies! I hope you enjoy what we’ve got in store this October, and I eagerly look forward to reading all the submitted entries from our contributors! Of course, if you have any questions about this year’s series or rules, please feel free to email me at horrorandsons@yahoo with your questions!
Until next time… stay spooky!
Horror And Sons 