Dear Movie Studios,

This October has been terrible for people trying to see a horror movie in theaters, as all they got was the lackluster remake of Carrie.

But, as we inch closer to Halloween, the treats have been coming in faster and more furious than Vin Diesel for the Horror Community. First came the news that both Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi would be returning for Army of Darkness 2 and second, Clive Barker would be writing Dimension’s remake of Hellraiser and insisted on Doug Bradley’s return.  Following these announcements came the recent news that Trick ‘ r Treat 2 will become a reality.

So, instead of getting another addition to the Saw or Paranormal Activity franchises in theaters for Halloween, we instead get several pieces of news to tide us Horror Hounds over.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I have some free advice for you, the Studios. The Saw franchise became shitty after it was decided that there needed to be a new sequel every year out in time for Halloween, and you are now doing this to the Paranormal Activity films, although thankfully you didn’t force one out this year.

Here are several ways that Halloween could have been saved this year, besides news of future horror films that are yet to even have finished screenplays. Because no matter how amazing the news is, it is still just news and we probably won’t see a finished version of either three films until at least 2016.

1. Release Curse of Chucky in theaters.  It’s an established franchise, people know who Chucky is and the movie deserves more respect than being released straight-to-DVD.

2. Release All The Boys Love Mandy Lane in theaters.  It’s been sitting on the shelf since 2006 and features hot girls and buff guys being sliced and diced, something both genders would flock to see in theaters around Halloween. Both of these films were already finished, all you had to do was market them.

3. Don’t release unnecessary remakes that don’t add anything to the original.  Studios, like you, will release remakes of The Omen, Psycho and the newly released Carrie, which basically just tread the same ground.  Yet remakes such as Maniac, which adds new layers and mixes things up with a first-person perspective, gets a limited release and has to be ordered On Demand.

4.  Look to the 1980’s.  Not for fashion advice, but to see horror movie trends.  There are too many found footage movies; please don’t do that to Friday the 13th. And frankly, there are too many vampire and zombie films for my taste. Go back to making old-school slasher films. All you need is a creative title and a poster. Then fill the movie with horny teenagers who have unprotected sex and do drugs and add blood, gore and nudity.  And for the sake of all that is holy, create new villains or monsters to slaughter them with… the best example being Victor Crowley in the Hatchet trilogy, which was shown no respect by you guys.

5. Lazy CGI.  Go back to the old days of practical effects, like those used by Tom Savini in Friday the 13th and The Burning.  Half the fun of watching death scenes is trying to figure out how they did the effect, while computer effects seem to spoil that for me.  CGI is fine when combined with practical effects, which can be masterfully seen in The Walking Dead.

I will end this rant by saying one last thing, Horror Films deserve more respect then they get from Critical Reviews. The Horror Community in general is often disrespected by you guys at the Studios and has largely been forgotten about this Halloween. What you forget is that our community is a big one and when you release something that isn’t a boring rehash horror fans will go out and support it, just look at something like Cabin In The Woods.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!