When the first horror film, "House of the Devil", slashed its way onto the projection screen in 1896, people probably thought it was a fluke, a genre that was doomed to eventually fail, like the romantic comedy or the all too overdone team sports movie. However, in the year 2021 horror movies are, in fact, the only genre that has consistently drawn large groups of people to theaters during lock downs. All other genres have failed miserably at repeating this success story. Family oriented films are struggling; yes, even Pixar. Who would've thought that movie goers would actually want to see real people acting? It's much better watching poorly drawn cartoons with a bunch of CG crap edited on top of it to save money, am I right? Summer box office smashes are flailing and bombing big time. And action movies are dying harder than ever before. But the horror film lives on, no matter how corny or unrealistic they can be. This makes perfect sense to us. After all, Melissa and I have always loved Halloween. I don't care if I should have said Melissa and me because Melissa and I sounds better, so deal with it. Horror has a funny way of bringing people together, especially when the times are tough. I will never forget the early days of the pandemic when the only place I seemed to find any solace was in horror movies. I also took a lot of pleasure in researching all of the fantastic costume and makeup transformations people had put together online. It was truly amazing watching people take concepts that should have disgusted people and turn them into some of the best art I had ever seen. Of course the search engine gods were not happy with me observing all of this naughty material. Several times, as I searched for the next best gore and horror concepts I had ever seen, I kept being inundated with messages about how suicide is not good. The algorithm was essentially making the assumption that, because I liked looking at fake horror costumes on a computer, that I was now suicidal. Mind you, this was during the Halloween season last year so you could see how I would be a little offended by such an assumption, the kind of assumption that only the boring wealthy people who have no time for costumes would make. Since when do you have to be suicidal to play pretend? Horror is about so much more than just the look or the special effects. Sure, that's part of it. But the horror story is just as important to understanding why people become so infatuated with the number holiday of the dead and sugar crazed. Horror movies are essentially the story of fear and paranoia. Fear plays tricks on the brain and paranoia shortly follows, turning those optical illusions into a sense of impending doom. But horror movies often show us the error of our ways as well. These scary films frighten us into realizing the crucial mistakes we made in building a society that is only for those deemed "successful". The killer in these films are often lonely, abandoned individuals, who, for whatever reason, do not fit in to society as they should. Because of this these killers grow bitter and cold; their love for their fellow humans turns to hate and their lust for revenge increases with every kill. The victims in horror movies are often self-absorbed, full of hatred for those who are different from them, spoiled, and arrogant. So, in a sense, a good horror movie makes you see things from the killer and the victim's perspective; and, perhaps most unsettling of all, it reminds us that there is not all that much difference between the two...apart from a butcher knife and a bloody mask of course.