Special Report: Axelscares Horror Movie Marathon

Warning. The following show feature stunts performed either by professionals or under the supervision of professionals. Axel Cohagen So good to talk with you, sir. When you were on last time, we were talking about a horror movie marathon that you do, and I guess you are ready to actually bite the bullet and take part in that. Absolutely.

It is Axel Scares. That's how you can find it on Instagram ax El Scares. It's also Axel's Cares, so it kind of works both ways. I will be watching twenty new to me horror movies over the course of two and a half days from September thirteenth to the fifteenth. How many years have you been doing this marathon?

Oh lord, it started in nineteen ninety five. That was back when being a movie guy was kind of a cool thing. And so a buddy and I Scott figured out we could use that as an excuse to put an article in the teen section of the local newspaper. And Mister Movies, which was a video store, let us check out for free twenty movies. Actually, the first time we checked out twenty one and only had time for twenty, which is okay.

The last one would have been Barfly, and I don't know that Barfly would have gone down well after watching so many movies. So then the next year he was at college and I did it. And those first two years it was any movie. It didn't have to be scary movies. I did it just for fun, and I don't even remember what year, but another video store was going out of business, so I spent twenty dollars, got twenty VHS tapes and just binged them.

Last year, I decided it'd be fun to do again because a horror convention I normally went to didn't have the guests I was looking for and I had decided not to go, and I was missing that feeling because it gets me excited for the Halloween season. So I thought, why not do the marathon again and use it to raise money. So last year it was for suicide prevention, and this year it's a little more specific. I am raising money for the Trevor Project, which is very important in providing mental health resources to lgbt QIA plus youth. The why the switch up with charities, the way that things are going right now, it's very difficult for lgbt QIA plus people and politically, it could get worse.

I just found some statistics on their website and lg adbt qia plus young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. The Trevor Project estimates that more than one point eight million lgbt qia plus young people ages thirteen to twenty four seriously consider suicide each year in the US, and at least one attempt suicide every forty five seconds. A twenty twenty three US national survey on the mental health of lgbtqia plus young people found that forty one percent of them seriously considered suicide, including roughly half of transgender and non binary youth. And with those numbers, I can't think of a greater need. Tell me a little bit about the I guess the sponsorship of this, like how does this work, how can we give money?

And how does this play in with the actual movies that you're watching. I have a page on the Trevor Project that you can go to to donate money, and you can find it on my Instagram Axle Scares and just click the link donate money. But as we get closer to it, we're going to have some fun in store. I've been asking some of my favorite horror and spooky related businesses for donations for prizes, and I've been getting some great responses. So I'm excited that for at least some of the movies, whoever donates the most during that time I'm watching the movie will walk away with the prize.

And I'm really excited about some of them. Also, if you want me to watch a particular movie and I haven't already seen it, I've decided that if you pay fifty dollars, I will watch that movie. You can that if there's a great movie out there you think needs more exposure, I'll gladly watch great movies. If you want to torture an innocent man in Iowa by recommending the most god awful movie that has ever drug its way into the horror movie world for fifty dollars, you can force me to do that. Last year for free, I watched Demon Cop and that was the last movie I watched, and it hurt me.

It hurt me somewhere deep within myself, but I watched it. So are you live streaming this event? Can people watch along with you? I am working on doing it for at least some of the movies. I want to be careful with copyright and things like that, but I would like to do some live streaming.

I always update my Instagram page with what's going on, so expect a lot of that. It'll be me. There is a chance, depending on if I find any appropriate movies, I will be watching them with my eight year old daughter. Last year we watched shin Godzilla, the Goosebumps movie, The Last Unicorn, and I think we found one other one that we could watch together. So if you like adorable plucky children being involved in your fundraising, she usually shows up and steals the show for a few movies.

Now, I'm not a real strong mathematician, so twenty movies over, would you say two and a half days? It seems like you're not going to get a lot of sleep during that period of time. There are tricks, Mike, there's a finesse to this. First of all, I really like movies that are hugging ninety minutes. That makes them easier for going down.

Sometimes I will be a little tricky and I will find movies that are seventy or eighty minutes. A lot of old black and white movies are helpful in that it's getting tougher because I hold myself to the rule that they have to be movies I've never seen before, so that makes it trickier. I tend to watch four on Friday and then go to bed, get up Saturday morning, and Saturday usually goes pretty well. I watch eight movies. There's a lot of snacking.

I tend to like chicken and a biscuit and mountain dew. Those have been on my training table for years, so I'll have them around and Saturday goes pretty well. And then Sunday after I sleep Saturday night, Sunday is where the body and the will start to give out. It's a lot of movies and you start dreaming in jump cuts, and the first chunk of movies on Sunday feel like they take forever, and I can hear my family upstairs living their normal lives, and I wonder why did I agree to do this again? And then the last two.

It kind of picks up. If you're interested, try it sometime, and it is stressful. I'm a professional might I've done this will be my fifth time. But you also have to be careful of what you pick. In terms of a movie.

You can't pick too many bad ones in a row that are cheesy. You have to watch out for ones that are good but challenging. I watched Cronenberg's Crash in the second movie Marathon, and that was that was a good one to end a day on. If I would have started the day with Crash, I don't know where I would have gone from there. The first time we did this, we were pretty naive about horror movies at the time, and we decided we picked a movie based on the fact that the title seemed really cheesy, that it would be a good laugh and we'd make fun of it for being kind of silly.

So we thought, just going by the title, this is going to be a silly movie, and we rented I Spit on Your Grave, and we had a lot of people over at my friend Scott's house watching this movie we thought was going to be cheesy, and you could just feel the air let out of the room and everyone's hoping his parents don't come walk in. And that's how I first saw I Spit on Your Grave. Have you seen bo was afraid? Yet? No?

I went too badly. That's a long movie. I know. This is where it gets difficult. If someone if someone puts in fifty bucks, I'll watch it.

It's on. This is Mike breaking in During the edit, I donated fifty dollars and requested bo as Afraid for Axel to watch de. NICEH think it. Otherwise, it depends on if I can shave down the times on some of the other ones. I know some of the movie streaming services.

I've already earmarked shorter movies that I can watch. I don't know a lot about these movies going in, so it's always buyer beware if you choose to watch along with me. There was one last year that I felt like I had too much sex and violence that I didn't feel comfortable doing it for charity anymore, so I switched. There was another one last year where I bailed out to a different movie because I just needed something to pep me out, and the second movie was Kids Versus Aliens, which was a lot of fun and I owe it for helping me keep my stamina. How many people do you have watching along with you while you're doing this?

Usually it's just me. I think I might try to invite a few people over this year. I did watch Pearl last year with my friend Scott who started this thing with me. He lives in Manhattan, so he was watching it while I was watching it, and we were texting back and forth. And actually Pearl ended up being my favorite movie of the marathon last year, along with I liked Possum quite a bit and I thought Blood Quantum was really good, So there were a few really good ones in there last year.

When do you post the schedule of what you're going to be watching? Usually I keep it a secret until they show up, but I might post it a week before. This year just so people can watch along. Yeah, and so they know because I'm going to have prizes for the high donors, so that way people know when they want to tune in and hopefully donate. The goal is pretty lofty.

Last year I raised close to one thousand dollars, and this year I decided to go big or go home, and I'm setting the goal for five thousand dollars for the Trevor Project. So I would love to see that much money raised. I would love to see a whole bunch of people becoming aware of this problem and doing what they can by being an advocate and an ally. If that's the end result of this, then i'd be happy to. And again that you are to go to is Instagram slash axel Scares or axels Care.

I love the yes a different way of approaching that. And then you said there's also a page on the Trevor Project itself. Yes there is. I'm going to try to get it switched over to axels Cares or axle Scares, so everything's all the same. But I'm using the axles cares hashtag on Instagram too, so hopefully that'll start to pick up.

I have I already have a few really cool prizes lined up, and I'm hoping to get a bunch more. In my dream world, I will have twenty prizes, one for each movie, and I just want this to be a great time. It's kind of silly, to be honest with you. I would probably still watch twenty horror movies in two and a half days, just because that's me and there's something wrong with me like that. But I love the idea of having something that can turn horror into something positive and it makes me happy to take my passion and hopefully provide to an area of great.

Need actual best of luck. I will be donating, and I think I might know what movie I'm going to pick for you. I love it, Mike, Thank you so much for having me. On your. Shocking.

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