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Q: I disagree with your contention that, after having seen all 100 movies on the American Film Institute's "greatest" list, one would no longer have the desire to see a Dead Teenager Movie. Such a statement does a disservice to the ranks of dedicated horror fans and critics who could intelligently construct arguments for why many of these movies are quite worthwhile. There is a baseness to them, certainly, but horror's essential function is base -- to create a sinister echo in the darkest wells of our psyche.
Dead Teenager Films add a layer of exploitation that makes the experience easier to digest, but the chord they strike is necessary. There is room for both the cinematic elite and movie sleaze in the moviegoing experience. To quote the great horror icon Vincent Price, "A man who limits his interests, limits his life."
Nate Yapp,
Editor, Classic-Horror.com, Phoenix
A. And to paraphrase Pauline Kael, the movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, there is no reason to go. I'd draw a distinction, however, between the classic horror genre, which has produced masterpieces from "Nosferatu" to "The Silence of the Lambs," and the Dead Teenager Movie, which I define as a movie that starts out with a lot of teenagers, and kills them all, except one to populate the sequel.
However, DTMs have their defenders; Alex Jackson of Logan, Utah, writes: "There are a handful that I definitely prefer to Hitchcock's cowardly "Vertigo" -- "Friday the 13th" Parts 2, 4, 5 and 8; "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4," and maybe 5, and "New Nightmare"; "Sleepaway Camp"; "Dr. Giggles," and "Halloween" (you yourself gave this four stars!).
Ebert again: "Vertigo" is cowardly? I think it is relentlessly brave. I agree that "Halloween" is great, but disagree that it is a DTM.