Beating Burnout By Binging B-Movies

They way that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. They’re wrong about that, but sometimes the best way to bypass burnout is by throwing yourself into a ridiculous challenge.

For the better part of a decade, if I wasn’t being paid to watch something, I probably wasn’t watching it. My autumn evenings were claimed. I was writing about two of the bigger shows on cable television, the Sunday juggernaut known as THE WALKING DEAD and the Wednesday-dominating Ryan Murphy creation AMERICAN HORROR STORY. Two shows a week, usually beginning in September and running through to the new year, cutting a swath through the prime horror movie season. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time I enjoyed the opportunity to write reviews and features about two huge shows, but after that much mental effort per week for months without a break, my brain was fried and my ability to watch things for fun was mostly gone. I still got out to movies on occasion, but by and large horror (and genre content) had become a job, not a love affair.

That general disillusionment has persisted even after AMERICAN HORROR STORY and THE WALKING DEAD (and their various spin-offs) have stopped being the biggest shows on cable and my opportunities to write about them dried up as a result. I don’t miss that so much; I missed the love of movies I used to have.

Enter the 100 in 92 Challenge created by Sarah Stubbs (one of the Silver Bolo Award winners behind GEEKS WHO EAT, alongside her own writing career and multiple podcasts). The mission? Watch 100 horror movies in the 92 calendar days between August 1st and October 31st. The catch? The horror movies have to be films you’ve never seen before. I’ve seen it before, and I’ve even attempted it, but this year, I’m determined to not give up halfway through. I don’t expect to win the challenge by breaking 100 movies before October 31, but I’ve gotten over 55 so far, my pace isn’t far off from winning, and most importantly, I’ve rediscovered something about myself.

I really like horror movies. Even when I don’t have to watch them, or have a compelling reason to watch them, there’s a certain joy in watching these things that I had forgotten about due to professional burn-out. For a long time, this was a chore, albeit a fun chore. But there’s something about the challenge itself, and the fact that it has to be new movies, that has given me something back that I thought was mostly gone. I still had a love for horror movies, but I didn’t give them my time and attention.

The pressure of having a deadline and a number goal has spurred me into watching more movies in my free time, rather than just staring at the walls. The fact that it has to be a movie I’ve never seen has driven me to check out some stuff I’ve always been curious about (like the awful DAY OF THE DEAD remake and the surprisingly good Syfy/Sci-Fi Channel original ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE) but never curious enough to make time for because I knew there were “better” movies I needed to see first. It doesn’t matter if the movie is bad; what matters is that it fits the confines of the challenge. If it’s bad, that’s what the 2x speed option is for. If it’s good, then I’ve just spent some time watching a good movie. Either way, it’s another entry into the 100 and another step towards the goal.

If nothing else, partaking in the contest has been freeing. It’s an excuse that I didn’t know I needed to watch whatever strikes my fancy at that particular moment without regard for any other details. Shirley Jones from THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY is in your movie? Sure, I’m in. Cool key art? Why not? Short run time? Definitely.

I don’t need to worry about using my free time correctly. It doesn’t matter if the movie isn’t worth watching. Something caught my attention, so I now have carte blanche to chase the squirrel, an excuse to “waste time” on something that might only appeal to me. Fun gets to be its own reward, and if it’s not fun to watch a new movie that you might love (or hate in a hilarious way), then what is?

Ron Hogan is a writer, podcaster, gadabout, and raconteur from Louisville, Kentucky. You can read his written works at Den of Geek, Film Stories, and at several magazines and sites that no longer exist. You can hear his voice (and potentially see his magnificent beard) on the Film Strip Podcast. 

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