Two nights ago, at a packed screening at the Stray Cat Film Center, I watched (and watched the audience watch) Even the Wind Is Afraid (1968) to close out my month-long Mexican Gothic film series.

This was my first solo programming series at Stray Cat, where I co-host the Horror Pod Class every month, and previously programmed Kazuo Umezu’s Horror Theater with Elijah LaFollette of Magnetic Magic Rentals, paying homage to the “god of horror manga.”

It was also a huge success.

Even before Mexican Gothic kicked off, we had the cooperation of the Mexican Consulate, who not only helped to promote the series, but the attached consul actually came out to one of the screenings and introduced the whole thing. I really can’t thank them enough for their support.

We sold out virtually every screening, which is particularly impressive given that I’m pretty sure almost everyone who came out was seeing these movies for the first time. It means so much to me that the Stray Cat community put enough faith in me to come out and watch these weird, wild, eerie, and excellent movies sight unseen.

I got wonderful feedback from the audience, and it was a genuine pleasure not only to watch these wonderful flicks with an appreciative crowd, but to see which movies became new favorites for viewers. I had people tell me that they had ordered Blu-rays after seeing them. Probably a dozen or more people managed to make it out to all four screenings! I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

To no small extent, this is why I do so much of what I do. I love these movies, and I want to show them to people who might not otherwise see them, so that they can love them, too.

I am eager to do more programming like this, and hopefully I will in the near future. For now, I’ll be hosting a screening of The Tingler (because of course I will) at the Screenland Armour as part of their Shocktober lineup on Sunday, October 4. And, of course, every month you can join Tyler Unsell and I as we host a free screening followed by an intellectual (or not) discussion as part of the Horror Pod Class. In October, we’ll be talking about demons, and you can probably guess what movie we’re showing…

Naturally, there’s a lot for horror fans to look forward to in the KC area in October. Besides the usual Shocktober programming at Screenland, Stray Cat is doing their Fang Favorites lineup of vampire movies every Friday night throughout the month, including The Hunger, The Addiction, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, and Horror of Dracula on my birthday. At the Aztec Shawnee theater, you can catch Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in The Black Cat (1934) On October 22.

For me, though, the most exciting spooky season event is almost always the Analog Sunday Double-Creature, hosted by Magnetic Magic Rentals. I’ve been helping out with the giveaways this year, and we’ve got some really fun stuff in the works.

There were several reasons why I put the Mexican Gothic film series together – and why the Stray Cat and I decided to host it in September. One of those was to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, which continues to run through October 15. Another was because I felt like these movies offered a particularly good lead-in to the spooky season.

If you weren’t able to make it out to the Stray Cat for Mexican Gothic, I obviously recommend all four of the movies that we screened, and think they all make great Halloween month viewing. And you can’t ask for more creaky gothic haunted house nonsense than you’ll find in Curse of the Crying Woman, in particular.

Thank you to the Mexican Consulate, the Stray Cat Film Center, and a special thanks to everyone who came out to watch Mexican Gothic! I can’t wait for whatever comes next! This was a wonderful reminder of why I do what I do and, I hope, a great lead-in to the spooky season for a bunch of us – myself included!