The Cherry Hill Chainsaw Massacre

Beginning in the early 2000s, the horror genre witnessed the boom of the remake. No property was considered too sacred to be given the contemporary treatment. Just ask Gus Van Sant, whose reverence for Alfred Hitchcock's seminal psychological slasher, Psycho , was so great that he felt compelled to produce a literal shot-for-shot rehash, changing only the actors and updating the time period in which the story was set. In fact, no subgenre was exhumed from the grave more vigorously than that of the slasher, particularly the teen slasher. By 2010, three out of the four most iconic monsters in horror had been brought back to the screen for a modern reinterpretation, each with a singular approach. First up in line was Leatherface. For his 2003 remake of Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's trailblazing masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , screenwriter Scott Kosar retraced the basic outline of his source material while filling it in with new details, none of which paled in comparison ...

Around the 45-minute mark of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge , the sequel to Wes Craven's 1984 supernatural slasher hybrid, my previously placid viewing experience was suddenly interrupted by the most frightening of scenarios. While sitting in my basement watching the movie, I heard the front door open, and dashing in was my mother, screaming frantically, the shrill sound of her voice obstructed by the ceiling. It wasn't until then that I could smell the hint of a pungent odor like that of burning chili. Because I was so wrapped up in the movie unfolding before me, the smell didn't immediately register. Maybe I was so immersed in this fictional world that I assumed I was smelling the power plant where the two protagonists were wandering. Concerned, I paused the movie, stood up, and yelled from the basement to find out what was going on. Unbeknown to me, my mom was cooking beets on the stove, and made the nearly fatally misguided decision to go outside, whe...