The Horror Movie to End All Horror Movies

Rating: 10/10 (15 April 2012)

I wouldn't say this is my favorite horror movie. Not at all. But why? Because, in a way, it transcends other horror movies. The film gracefully walks the line between tongue- in-cheek and legitimate horror so incredibly well; I was still thinking about it after I'd gotten home from the theater; how the filmmakers managed to pull it all off in such a short amount of time and yet so smoothly is something of a mystery to me.
The film literally showcases every type of horror film (and masterfully pays homage to quite a few specific horror films). The genre builds from a Deliverance / Wrong Turn theme and quickly shifts to something reminiscent of the Evil Dead series, complete with a self-opening hatch leading to the inevitable basement. It hovers over this sub genre for a while, and then evolves into homages to films like the Cube, The Mist, Hellraiser, various ghost, monster, and zombie movies, and eventually caps it all off with Lovecraftian Cthulhu mythos.
The film rips apart every horror movie you've ever loved, stitches them all back together lovingly (albeit sarcastically at times), and what you get is one heck of an entertaining movie. If you were to have a horror movie night, or even a full-blown festival, this is the movie you'd want to play last. I'm not saying that it's any kind of "pinnacle" of horror movies. I'm saying that it is the definitive statement and a concluding, passionate love letter to the genre.