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The Manson Family (1997)

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Before Jim Van Bebber, the writer, director, and co-editor of The Manson Family , commenced production on his exploitation true-crime splatter flick, the infamous real-life horror story of the Charles Manson Family murders -- a series of murders that transpired in the summer of 1969 and claimed the lives of nine innocent human beings, ten if you include an unborn baby -- had been dramatized only as a single stuffy made-for-TV courtroom drama titled Helter Skelter . While it may have featured a legendary performance from Steve Railsback as Charles Manson, the focus of the narrative was the prosecution of Manson and his cult of deluded, white supremacist followers as told from the perspective of Vincent Bugliosi.  This tragic, stranger-than-fiction chapter in American history is the greatest and most earth-shaking horror story ever committed to the history books, and with its intoxicating cocktail of sex, carnage, emotional manipulation, and a bevy of colorful personalities, Van Bebb...
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You're Next (2013)

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You're Next  subverts the home invasion slasher subgenre of horror in a number of ways: the protagonist turns out to be a smarter, better prepared, and more ferocious killer than the actual arrow-slinging antagonists targeting her; a couple of the supposed targets are complicit in the slaying of their own family; a few of the characters are unlikable to the degree of daring the viewer to actively root against them; the most obnoxious character is innocent of murder, while the most seemingly innocent and good-natured is a co-conspirator; and the masked, silent assailants eventually remove their masks and verbally interact with the people who enlisted their services.  The gold standard of the home invasion horror subgenre will forever remain Bryan Bertino's The Strangers . Emphasizing the power of intimation and slow-building suspense over graphic demonstrations of viscera, Bertino brought the American slasher back to its blissfully straightforward roots. The story -- a couple a...
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The Belko Experiment (2017)

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In Frank Darabont's 2007 adaptation of Stephen King's sci-fi horror novella, The Mist , four of the primary protagonists gather in a storage room and discuss their diverging philosophies on human nature. Alone on the optimistic side is maternal teacher Amanda Dumfries (Laurie Holden), who rejects the notion that more than a few people will turn to the guidance of the conspicuously deranged, Bible-belt doomsayer, Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden). "People are basically good," she insists, "decent. My God, David, we're a civilized society." Movie-poster artist David Drayton's (Thomas Jane) viewpoint, on the other hand, is far more pragmatic and pessimistic. "Sure, as long as the machines are working and you can dial 911, but you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them, no more rules, you'll see how primitive they get." On board with that theory are Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) and assistant manag...
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