AllMovie

Director Andrew Kuehn has excerpted brief segments of terror and suspense in a wide variety of horror movies and strung them together with added commentary, as well as some enacted narrative, to create a compilation of cinematic, fright-inducing effects. Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen provide the commentary on topics such as "sex and terror" (Dressed to Kill), loathsome villains (Nighthawks, Vice Squad), and the occult (Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist). Alfred Hitchcock presents his concepts of how to create suspense in a clip from Alfred Hitchcock: The Men Who Made the Movies, in one of the better segments of this anthology. Horror film buffs may chafe at the selection criteria, the truncated clips, and other scholarly points -- non-specialists will still get an overview of aspects of the genre.