31 Days of Horror Redux: V/H/S/Beyond

Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.

Day 4: V/H/S/Beyond, various directors

We talked about horror anthologies a bit in our last entry, and the original V/H/S film is one of the best in the subgenre’s long history. The directors on that first project comprise a who’s who of modern independent horror: Ti West (The House of the Devil, the X trilogy), Adam Wingard (Blair Witch, The Guest), and the Radio Silence team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not, Scream 5 and 6). And that’s not to mention David Bruckner, Chad Villella, and mumblecore legend Joe Swanberg. It’s a remarkable collection of talent that came together to produce a truly singular work of art.

Hollywood being Hollywood, that singular piece of art has now been turned into a seven-film (and counting) franchise. While consistently fun, the quality is much more hit and miss than you’d like to see after the excellence of the first two films. V/H/S/Beyond, however, is the best in the franchise since those first two efforts. It is more focused, visceral, and terrifying than any of the preceding four entries (Viral, 94, 99, and 85).

One of the underrated aspects of a great anthology is the wraparound segment, the connective tissue that brings all of the stories together. This is what makes the original Tales from the Hood such an excellent film. A mortician explaining the circumstances of his clientele’s deaths is tailor-made for this format. The first V/H/S has a fantastic conceit: Burglars break into a home and discover a trove of bizarre and disturbing VHS tapes. As a general rule, the stronger the connective tissue, the stronger the anthology.

In the case of V/H/S/Beyond, the basic premise is that we are watching the footage from two VHS tapes that purport to show proof of extraterrestrial life. These tapes are incorporated into a History Channel-style alien documentary, directed by Jay Cheel. This section includes interviews with real-life paranormal experts and investigators like Mitch Horowitz, Brian Baker, and the Corridor Digital YouTube folks.

This is a strong backbone for an anthology, particularly considering that all of the previous films in the series essentially say, ‘Here’s a bunch of wild stuff that was caught on tape,’ and leave it at that. Now, at least one of the six shorts presented here – and probably two depending on your interpretation of Dream Girl – doesn’t have anything to do with aliens, so I would not begrudge anyone arguing it does not have the strength of its convictions. But, the point stands that these are largely connected and add up to a satisfying whole.

The two best segments do directly engage with the premise: Humans encounter aliens. The first, chronologically, is Live and Let Die, directed by Justin Martinez, a co-founder of Radio Silence along with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett. In this short, the action is caught on GoPros worn by a group of friends on a skydiving trip. When a UFO shoots down the plane they are in, some survive the fall, and some don’t. Those who don’t are the lucky ones.

What follows is a wonderfully tense chase sequence through an orchard as the survivors are stalked by alien beasts. The cat-and-mouse game is given plenty of space to breathe as our main survivor, Zach, from whose POV we see the action, alternates between running for safety and running toward the danger as he seeks to help his screaming friends. The alien effects are good, the POV-style action is exhilarating, and the ending is a thrill.

The other best segment is the final sequence, not counting the wraparound, Stowaway. Directed by Kate Siegel and written by her husband, Mike Flanagan (he of Ouija: Origin of Evil), this short packs the biggest emotional wallop of anything in this anthology, which is no surprise coming from this duo. The sequence stars Alanah Pearce as Halley, a woman who we learn has given up everything – her husband, her daughter, her former life – in pursuit of proving the existence of extraterrestrials.

The slow burn of revelation in Stowaway is its greatest effect, so I will not reveal much more than to say that when Halley achieves her goal, it is much more than she bargained for. Pearce is great as a woman who is aware that her obsession could cost her everything but cannot stop herself. The writing is all heartbreaking setups and payoffs, and the direction is suitably stomach-churning. This is not just the best short of this film, but one of the best in the franchise.

Briefly touching on the others: The opener, Stork, directed by Jordan Downey, is positioned as a kind of first-person shooter video game with a crew of cops tracking down a kidnapping ring and instead discovering something much more horrifying. I am generally not a fan of this kind of shoot-’em-up aesthetic in which good guys with guns (and, in this case, badges) solve all the problems. As such, this short is fun but slight.

Dream Girl, directed by Virat Pal, follows two Mumbai paparazzi tasked with getting exclusive footage of the latest Bollywood star. Of course, nothing is what it seems, and things go wildly off the rails in the way things tend to do in these shorts. What is interesting here is that for a couple minutes at least, we get a full-on Bollywood-style musical sequence. It’s an unexpected delight and an unnerving digression, given everything else going on around it.

Finally, there is Fur Babies, co-directed by actor Justin Long and his brother, Christopher Long. This is a lot of fun, and it’s creepy and gross in the best ways, but I have to talk about one aspect of it that requires me to spoil the big reveal. So if you want to go in blind, skip the next paragraph.

Spoiler paragraph: The secret of this film is that the woman who runs a doggy daycare (Libby Letlow) is kidnapping humans and turning them into dogs by sewing the pieces of dead dogs onto them, including their full jaws, which is a suitably horrifying image. However, this is the exact plot of the 2014 Kevin Smith movie Tusk, which stars Justin Long. Yes, the Smith movie is about a walrus, not dogs, but nevertheless, it is the same story. I don’t know what it says that Long starred in Tusk then felt the need to create this specific short, but there is definitely something under the surface there.

End spoilers.

The V/H/S series has become an annual tradition at Shudder, and if the entries continue to be as strong as this, I will continue to be excited for future installments. For posterity’s sake, my ranking of the seven films in the franchise:

1. V/H/S (2012)

2. V/H/S/2 (2013)

3. V/H/S/Beyond (2024)

4. V/H/S/85 (2023)

5. V/H/S/94 (2021) … Hail, Raatma

6. V/H/S/99 (2022)

7. V/H/S/Viral (2014)

31 Days of Horror Redux: Horror Noire

Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.

Day 3: Horror Noire, various directors

The horror anthology is a tradition that stretches back well before the advent of film. Without any hard proof, I would suggest it goes back to the beginning of language. There is something inherently human about sitting around a fire and trading scary stories, each one trying to top the terror of the last. That is the energy, the primal force the best of these films can conjure.

Produced by Shudder and AMC, Horror Noire does not quite reach those heights, but it provides plenty of exhilaration and terror along the way. This is a series of six, unconnected short horror films by black filmmakers. If the title seems familiar, that is because it comes from a documentary released two years prior called Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, which I cannot recommend highly enough. The intent behind this anthology is to give six black filmmakers access and opportunity to a horror project that spoke to them. Some of these shorts are more successful than others, but I wholeheartedly endorse any project that gives opportunities to marginalized creators.

The first short is The Lake, directed by Joe West, about a teacher running from her past who moves into a lake house in a new town. There is a swampy, gothic quality to the filmmaking here, and the body horror elements are fun and well executed, but the story feels underbaked. There is something wrong with the lake and people are dying, but the way that is executed in the film ends up more confusing than haunting.

Next up is Brand of Evil, directed by Director X., which follows a graphic designer who sells his soul, figuratively at first then maybe literally, for a payday. The actual mechanics of what plays out are a little muddled, but all of it works if taken on a purely thematic and moral level. Nekani (Brandon Mychal Smith) takes money from white supremacists to recreate their symbols of hate, then those symbols of hate take corporeal form and kill black people in the community.

Allegorically, of course, we understand that indulging symbols of hate like the confederate flag or Proud Boys symbols – either through active participation or passive allowance – leads directly to both psychological and physical harm. There is also an interesting meta-commentary on the idea of a black filmmaker taking money from a major corporation to create art for that corporation.

Zandashé Brown’s Bride Before You comes next and ramps up the horror with a woman desperate for a child who turns to mysticism in order to achieve her aims. Of course, the result is more a curse than a blessing, and the creature design here is the finest in the film. There is an emotional heft to this tale that is missing from the rest of the shorts, but the pacing is just a tad slow to be fully effective.

Fugue State, directed by Rob J. Greenlea, is a fascinating exploration of the way religion preys on people and specifically on the black community. The film stars Rachel True as a woman whose husband (Malcolm Barrett) falls under the spell of a maniacal preacher and cult leader known as Pike. Horror legend Tony Todd (Final Destination, Candyman) plays Pike and delivers a stirring speech at the end of this short that spells out all of the filmmakers’ concerns and intents. What it lacks in subtlety it makes up in panache, and Todd gamely brings the audience along to the inevitable violent conclusion.

Daddy, directed by Rob Givens (yes, that Robin Givens), is about the universal concern of being a good father and the fear that maybe you cannot live up to yours or your child’s expectations. Luke James is solid in the lead role as Red, a man who becomes obsessed with protecting his child from outside forces but cannot see the danger lurking on the inside. This is the least overtly horrific of the six shorts, but Givens does a good job of infusing the film with a constant state of dread.

The final short is also the best of the bunch: Sundown, directed by Kimani Ray Smith, which takes the idea of sundown towns to its logical, if ironic, conclusion. The white people are vampires. The action is thrilling, the comedy is on point, and the film provides a showcase for the sadly departed Erica Ash, who died of breast cancer in July of this year. Ash was a tremendous talent, and her part here suggests all the wonderful performances we are missing out on. Peter Stormare is also fun as the mayor of the town and the leader of the vampire clan.

There is a lot to recommend in Horror Noire, and while some its stories are uneven or underdeveloped – something that is true of all horror anthologies to one degree or another – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For everything it represents and everything it does accomplish, this is a film well worth seeking out.

31 Days of Horror Redux: Nightbitch

Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.

Day 2: Nightbitch, directed by Marielle Heller

Amy Adams can truly do anything. I knew that before I caught the West Coast premiere of Nightbitch last night at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. But, in this film, she is asked to do everything, and she carries it off without stepping wrong once. One hopes the film catches on with audiences and perhaps even Oscars voters but, more importantly, with the industry.

Adams has not had the kind of career of late befitting the star of Arrival, Doubt, and Enchanted. She’s wasted as Lois Lane in the DC Extended Universe. Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on many levels. And, the less said about Hillbilly Elegy in our current moment, the better. The last time she truly got to shine was in 2018’s Vice, but even that is a supporting role. So, if nothing else, Nightbitch puts a spotlight on an actress who deserves it.

As for the film, I am more mixed. I appreciate large swathes of the message, and I think this is a story worth existing in the world. But, it already exists in the world in the form of the bestselling novel on which this film is based, and Heller’s script does not quite do enough to justify the shift in medium. Between the voiceover narration and the lengthy to-camera monologues, there are sections of the movie that feel more like reading a book – or having a book read to you – than watching a film.

The major area where the film stands out as a punchy visual experience is in the editing and the way Heller designs sequences to emphasize the monotony of motherhood and how that monotony can build into its own kind of horror. The filmmaker communicates fully the soul-sucking nature of completing the same tasks day in and day out and the Sisyphean nature of raising a child – it feels neverending. These are the film’s best passages.

Thematically, Nightbitch wears its heart on its sleeve, and that’s mostly fine. Adams delivers several speeches about the pressures and expectations of being a mother, the failure of government and society to support families, and the pain and difficulty of balancing the needs of the self with those of this person you have brought into the world. All of these speeches are a little on the nose, but they all basically land because Adams delivers them with the necessary blend of self-awareness and emotional heft.

If you are unfamiliar with the plot of the film, it is about a harried stay-at-home mom (Adams) who believes she may be turning into a literal dog. I appreciated the ways in which the body horror elements are woven into the film and how the story does not treat the character’s concerns as irrational. Rather, it explores them through the lens of the mysticism and power inherent in all women. “You ever feel like the big secret is: We are gods?” Adams’ character proposes to the other mothers at a toddler book club. The movie agrees with this premise, and it does the work to bring you over to its side.

Where it falls flat is in its lack of specifics. The Adams character is designed to be everything to every woman, so much so that the story fails to dig very deeply into this one woman. The biggest flaw in the film is the way it fails to examine the main character’s privilege as an upper-class white woman whose family can afford to live on a single income. Heller’s film cannot critique this particular milieu because to do so would be to critique all of the women Adams is meant to be speaking for. If the film were more targeted, it could bear out such a critique without losing any of its feminist power.

Nightbitch is a good film with its heart in the right place and a great performance from its lead, but it is rough around the edges. Where it fits into a month of horror is a little suspect, too, but it is essentially a werewolf movie, and in my book, that’s close enough.

31 Days of Horror Redux: Ouija and Ouija: Origin of Evil

Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.

Day 1: Ouija, directed by Stiles White, and Ouija: Origin of Evil, directed by Mike Flanagan

Primarily, I was interested in watching the Flanagan film, but it felt wrong to start with the prequel, so I did a little double feature of the Ouija franchise. I’m glad I did. It’s a fascinating study in the ways the director can shape material to fit his personal vision and aesthetic – or the way in which he doesn’t.

Ouija is generally considered a failure, and while I might not be so harsh in my assessment, I also would not go so far as to call it a successful movie. It has elements that could work – such as a game cast, including star Olivia Cooke, and a sufficiently spooky premise – but it fails to deploy them with any style or consideration for the mood of the piece. 

This is a film that begins with a supposed suicide (actually, it was ghosts) then tries in the most perfunctory way to make grief an integral part of its story and themes. But, White, who co-wrote the movie with Juliet Snowden, puts in none of the necessary legwork to build upon the themes he so clearly wishes to explore. It’s like he set up the first and last domino and somehow still expected them to fall into place with nothing in the middle to make it happen.

A movie about communing with the dead after your best friend has just died should be filled with dread. We should be constantly concerned with what the spirit world has in store for Cooke and her friends. The movie has a bunch of scenes that could have space for that kind of creeping dread, but it never spends long enough in those spaces to embrace the terror. Instead, it flits around from moment to moment with little rhyme or reason, racing to an ending that’s mostly unsatisfying.

There are some scares in the movie, and Cooke is solid in the lead role, but it never rises above the level of a late ‘90s, early ‘00s teen slasher also-ran. Those movies, like this one, can be entertaining, but they don’t stick with you.

Now, compare that with its followup prequel (a contradiction in terms, I know), co-written and directed by Flanagan, who also helped punch up the script on the first film. From minute one, Flanagan establishes a style and mood, then builds his film around those ideas, immersing the audience in a world that feels cohesive and lived in.

Flanagan is well liked in the horror community after hitting it big with a set of popular Netflix shows, including The Haunting of Hill House, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Midnight Mass. I have never seen any of them, but by all accounts, they are spooky, atmospheric affairs that reward the viewer’s attention and consideration. In less than 100 minutes, Flanagan accomplishes all of that in Ouija: Origin of Evil.

Where the original is flat and generic, the prequel is dynamic and specific. I don’t love all the choices – specifically, there are some revelations about the ghosts at the end that feel out of place and unnecessary – but Flanagan, at least, is making choices. You can feel an authorial presence, shaping the movie moment to carefully placed moment. In other words, Flanagan sets up all his dominos.

Another fascinating aspect of this double feature is that the movies are in completely different subgenres of horror, despite beginning from essentially the same place, i.e., what if messing around with a Ouija board went terribly wrong? As mentioned, White’s film has the feel of a slasher flick, giving you a group of teens with cookie-cutter personalities (jock, moody guy, final girl, etc.) who will become cannon fodder for the evil presence in their lives. Origin of Evil, on the other hand, is a possession movie and a darn good one, at that.

All in all, this was a fun way to kick off a month of horror, and it may not be the last Flanagan film I watch throughout this process (for instance, I might need to make an appointment with a certain Doctor Sleep). Check back tomorrow for the next entry in our diary of terror.

Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux

On this day, 10 years ago, I started a project called the 31 Days of Horror. Thirty-one horror movies in 31 days. It was a way of sharing my love for the genre by sharing some of what I considered, at the time, the greatest films in that genre. Now, 10 years on feels like the right time to revisit the project – but with a twist. Instead of my recommendations, I am going to be listening to the world’s recommendations and watching new films, myself.

Each day this month – October being the spookiest month, I think we can all agree – I will be watching at least one horror film that is new to me. I do not have a schedule planned, but I have a vague idea of the movies I want and need to see. I will write about each film in this space, each day, and share my thoughts on the world of horror.

There are no rules for this project, but I will try my best to seek out a variety of subgenres, marginalized filmmakers, and new voices. This should be exciting, hopefully as much for you as for me. At the end of this month, the goal is to be a better rounded horror film fan than I am as of this writing. I want to learn, I want to grow, and I want to understand the furthest corners (thanks, Frank) of what this wonderful genre has to offer. I hope you will come along with me on the journey.

However, before forging ahead, I thought it would be fun to take a look back. I have been in love with horror for essentially the entirety of my movie-watching life. From the time a misguided babysitter showed me Jaws at the age of 3 and I briefly avoided swimming pools like the plague. Or when that same babysitter, in an even more ill-advised moment, showed me Child’s Play at the age of 4. I had nightmares. I didn’t go to that babysitter much more after that.

The point is: Horror lives with me, and I live with it. I am neither dogmatic nor precious about it. Show me something new. Show me a new take on an old formula. Show me an old formula done well. Show me the schlockiest, most undercooked story and give me a cheap thrill. I love it all. I cannot vouch for the quality of it all, but my love is real. 

So, with that in mind, I thought it would be fun to kick off the 10-year anniversary of the 31 Days of Horror with a list of my 10 favorite horror films of all time. I have never done this exercise, and frankly, I am as interested to see how it turns out as you are.

A couple rules: First, I won’t repeat the same director, otherwise I imagine we’d be looking at a list of almost entirely Wes Craven and Sam Raimi movies. Next, single films only, no franchises, as tempting as it might be to highlight whole groups of movies. Third, I reserve the right to change my mind and update this list in 10 years. Fourth, this is about favorites, not best. While I think most if not all of the films below are legitimately great, my only endorsement here is that I enjoy watching them.

Finally, and this is less a rule than an observation: My definition of horror may differ from yours, and that’s okay. It’s great, even. That is the beautiful thing about horror. What is horrific to you may not be so to me and vice versa. I promise to play fair – no Jesus Camp, one of the most horrifying movies I have ever seen. Let’s see how this goes.

First a few honorable mentions and one jury award: Ginger Snaps, proof that when the right metaphor meets the right theme, magic is made; Paranormal Activity, without question the movie that scared me most as an adult; [REC], when people ask me the scariest movie of all time, there are a lot of candidates, but this is on the list; Trick ‘r Treat, just a ton of fun – all treats from minute one until its wonderful conclusion; and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, a horror comedy that delivers laughs and gore in equal measure.

Jury award: Jaws. I had to break this out into a separate section because Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster is simply one of my favorite films of all time, but it teeters on the edge of what I would call “horror.” It certainly scared the hell out of a lot of people and continues to do so, but it’s mostly a drama that veers into thriller territory. Its moments of horror are suitably horrific, but they’re a little too few and far between for me to feel good about including it here.

Okay, onto the list. I wrote about several of these films at length in the original 31 Days of Horror series, so I will link to the longer pieces about each where applicable. Without further ado, my 10 favorite horror films of all time:

10. Leprechaun, directed by Mark Jones

Here’s my promise: Next year, on St. Patrick’s Day, I will devote an entire piece to my love of the Leprechaun films. We’ll get into the history of Trimark Pictures, the Jennifer Aniston of it all, Warwick Davis, and limericks. For now, I’ll just say this was a key piece of my starter kit as a child. There’s even a child as one of the leads. It’s not too scary. It’s not too gory. But it’s a helluva lot of fun, and it represents the kind of low-budget creature feature they don’t make enough of these days. And, it’s holiday-themed, to boot.

9. Carrie, directed by Brian de Palma

Some things that come to mind when I think about the greatest Stephen King adaptation (all due respect to The Shining): the hand at the end, of course; it is, perhaps, the most honest coming-of-age film ever made; the terror of religious fervor; Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie delivering all-time performances; the number of times I watched this late at night on TNT, sometimes as part of the Joe Bob Briggs show, which was very important to me. A masterpiece.

8. Night of the Living Dead, directed by George Romero

In 2014, I called this the greatest horror film ever made. Ten years later, that opinion has not changed. There was great horror before Romero unleashed his film upon the world – Psycho, Frankenstein, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, etc. – but this is the dividing line in modern horror filmmaking. This 1968 film sets the template for everything that would come after in terms of intensity, gore, and thematic depth. To this day, few films can match it in any of those categories, let alone all of them.

7. The Mist, directed by Frank Darabont

The feel-bad movie for all time (and the other Stephen King adaptation on my list). That ending. My god, that ending. For about 115 minutes, The Mist is some of the most intense and intensely allegorical filmmaking you are ever likely to see, then its final 10 minutes hit. Gut punch is too light a term. It’s more like one of this film’s monsters burrowed into you and exploded from the inside out. Not for nothing, but it also features one of the all-time great jump scares from my theater-going years, perhaps only matched by The Others. If you know, you know.

6. 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle

Back then, I wrote a lot about this film as a pandemic parable – really, that’s just the text of the movie, rather than parable – and at the time, we were in the midst of the Ebola panic, which turned out to be a blip on the radar. Since then, we have all lived through COVID. Along with Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, this provides a pretty accurate road map of how the world would feel in the grip of a pandemic. Suddenly, the parable that was always text became reality. That only made the movie more terrifying.

5. Tales from the Hood, directed by Rusty Cundieff

This omnibus of horror tales is the film that taught me movies could have a political consciousness. Not just horror movies, but movies in general. I cannot count the number of times I saw this Spike Lee-produced movie before I saw Do the Right Thing, so it was Cundieff who initially enlightened me on the abuses of police power, the scourge of domestic violence, and the false promise of “rehabilitation” in prisons. In many ways, this film is still a political guiding light for me.

4. Evil Dead II, directed by Sam Raimi

I could have gone with the original, The Evil Dead. I could have gone with the return to form, Drag Me to Hell. But if I am going to put one Raimi picture on my list of favorite horror films, it’s going to be this one every day of the week and twice on Sundays. This is the film where Raimi solidifies his status as a horror master. This is the film where Bruce Campell proves his bona fides as a leading man. This is the film where a man cuts off his own possessed hand and attaches a chainsaw to the stump. What else could you want?

3. From Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez

I waffled between this and the next film on the list a couple times. Two, three. Three, two. But I ultimately landed on this order because only the final 35-40 minutes of this film are actually horror. Everything before that is just an excellent crime picture. But, it’s that twist that makes this film so memorable. And, those last 35 minutes contain some of the gnarliest action-horror filmmaking you have ever seen. While the rest of you were watching E.R., this was my George Clooney of the ‘90s.

2. The Fly, directed by David Cronenberg

Speaking of, as a ‘90s kid, I should know Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park, and I should know Geena Davis from A League of Their Own. And, I do love those movies, although I actually prefer the Goldblum-led Lost World (a piece for another day). But, this is my Goldblum, this is my Davis, and The Fly is one of the most beautifully tragic romances ever put to screen. I knew that to be true, even as a child. That romance is ensconced in some of the most groundbreaking and influential body horror in film history, but it is a romance no less. 

The destruction of Seth Brundle’s body (pick your metaphor: cancer, AIDS, the ravages of age, what have you) is a brilliant effect, or rather a series of brilliant effects, but none of it means anything if we don’t care about the man at the center of it all and the woman who loves him. Cronenberg gets plenty of deserved credit for his work as a horror genius, but here, I must tip my cap to him as a master dramatist.

1. Scream, directed by Wes Craven

I’ve written about Scream a few times on this site, so I won’t rehash it here. I had seen horror movies before this, and heaven knows I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds since, but this is the one that changed everything. It spoke to me in a way movies had never spoken to me because it was about kids (played by obvious adults, but when you’re 8, teenagers and adults may as well be the same thing) who loved movies, just like I did. They knew everything about horror movies, just like I wanted to. One of the characters worked in a video store, which just seemed impossibly cool.

This film laid the groundwork for a decade of horror cinema that had more influence on my taste than probably any other era of any other genre. I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, Final Destination, and the many sequels to all of them. I watched them all. I loved most of them. But, nothing holds a candle to the film that started it all. The direction is so smart. The writing is so smart. Within their world, even the characters are smart. All of which adds up to a film that treats the audience as smart, which is one of the rarest and most precious things in horror.