Happy Halloween!

Happy October, GenLosers!! Kertoir here, Welcome to the REAL October Newsletter, Haha. 

I’ll start upfront; There’s really not much to update on this month! Well, nothing interesting for you guys, that is. Right now, Ran & I have been doing a LOT of back and forth on getting the details of the story to feel right and to be set in stone. Not much I can spoil just yet, but I’m happy to say there's been a lot of fleshing out and world building we’ve been up to that has sparked some important conversations! It’s hard to really tease this kind of work, because it’s been a lot of running in circles, but I can promise you guys things are coming along very nicely, and I’m as excited as ever to deliver this to you all. I believe ran mentioned to me recently wanting to write a post talking about their writing process more in-depth, so look out for that! 

Thank you guys so much for your enthusiasm and patience with us as we work on this, we want to make this the best we can, and we are eternally grateful you guys are giving us the time to. And speaking of thank yous, thank you so much for all the questions for the QnA earlier this month! Ran and I had such a blast getting to talk about some of the smaller details and process that goes into our work, so we’d happily do that kind of thing more often! 

To stray from GenLoss updates a little… Happy Early Halloween! Halloween is such a special time for me. Funny story, but once upon a time I actually hated Halloween! I was such a scaredy-cat kid growing up, I remember once being so terrified watching the skeletons' scene from Pirates of the Caribbean; The Curse of the Black Pearl, that I screamed and ran out of the room and decided that horror movies must just not be for me. Hell, I remember not even being able to walk through the Halloween aisles at stores, because those darn censor-activated ones would scare me every time. Times have, obviously, changed, and the horror genre is now one I appreciate so deeply. 

Once I started looking at horror from the lens of an art form, I truly learned to love it for so much more than I saw at surface level. From the VFX artists, animators, make-up artists, writers, foley artists, composers, directors, actors, set designers, prop designers, and so many more incredible artists who contribute work into horror films, so much love goes into movies like these and that love is just infectious to me. Obligatory shout-out to what made me change my perspective on the genre, Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House is my favourite piece of horror media of all time. There is so much to love about the show, and it’s based on an equally amazing book by Shirley Jackson of the same title, but the behind the scenes videos specifically of episode seven just drew me in and has yet to let me go. I had the pleasure of meeting Flanagan a few years ago, and his love of horror and enthusiasm speaking to younger creatives was simply inspiring. 

Thinking of those early memories of mine always has me in a very reflective mood this time of year, and makes me ponder what younger me would think of what I’m up to now. Though there’s still much more for me to learn, and sometimes I still get a little jump-y walking through Spirit Halloween, I think the version of me who was just starting to get hooked on horror would be so proud of how far I’ve come. Enough of that sappy stuff, an important thing along the way was all the super influential horror films I’ve watched! And, nothing says Halloween to me like a good horror movie marathon, so here are a few of my personal favourites that inspire a lot of my work to add to your watch lists;

• SAW, dir. James Wan (2004) – Obviously a Huge favourite of the team, but huge warning for gore if you’ve yet to see it.

• NOPE, dir. Jordan Peele (2022) – My favourite horror film of all time as of right now, the cinematography, and the sound design are just outstanding. Also, I just love Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer.

• Scream, dir. Wes Craven (1996) – THE classic slasher film that still holds up so well to this day.

• Barbarian, dir. Zach Cregger (2022) – With all the love Weapons has been getting this year (another amazing film of Cregger’s) I can not stress how good Barbarian was if it flew under your radar.

• Bring Her Back, dir. Philippou Brothers (2025)  – Such an underappreciated film of this past year, deserved so much more hype for how fun it was. 

• Trap, dir. M. Night Shyamalan (2024) – Such a fun watch, one of my favourites of 2024 (even if it isn’t a technically great film, lol)

Let us know if you watch any of these and your thoughts! I’d be happy to hear if this inspired any first-time watches, or even repeat watches! (I will be too) Also, be sure to tell us some of your favourite Halloween watches, I’ll add a few to my watch list too!

To further celebrate the season, I’ve made you guys a few Jack-O-Lantern stencils for you guys to try out if you’ve yet to carve your pumpkins! Try with your own discretion, I will admit I have not tried and tested these stencils myself, but I’ve carved enough pumpkins in my day that I’m confident they should work! Cut all the way through on the black sections, and cut about halfway on the grey sections! If you use any of these, please tag us and let us know! (I've attached them in PDF form below for printing ease :D)

To wrap up, I am very excited about a special day upcoming… the one-year anniversary of The Founder’s Game! It’s so hard to believe it’s been a whole year since it begun, but I’ll save my yapping for that until the big day. I bring it up now because I am brainstorming ways I’d like to celebrate the occasion, and may need help from some artists from the community… If you’re an artist, please let us know by tagging me on whatever your preferred platform is! I’ll be on the lookout :D

That concludes this month’s newsletter!! We’ve got some fun behind the scenes posts coming up this month, but if there’s anything you want to know more about, be sure to let us know in the comments. Beyond that, if there’s anything else you’d like to see on this Patreon do let us know, we’re always open to new ideas, and giving you guys what you want to see!  

Thank you guys so much for reading, see you all next time!!