So, wow. I can honestly say that I did not expect what I got out of my trip to the movies this morning. House of Wax looks on the surface to be a typical teen slasher pic, with vaguely recognizable male leads (unless I was a 15 year-old girl, in which case I’m pretty sure I’d have posters of them all over my bedroom) and more recognizable female leads (since my house is mostly packed for moving already, I can safely remain mute on this particular topic) all chosen for their relative shirtless hotness, and then sent out into the killing fields for 90 or so minutes of blood-splashing fun.

Don’t get me wrong. It absolutely was every bit of that. It would have to be, in order to achieve an accurate description as ‘American horror, subgenre teen’. But it had several other points of interest. First, I’m noticing a shift in the killer rationale. It used to be, all you had to do to get dead in one of these movies was engage in any of underage drinking, drug use of any kind, or pre-marital second base. These days, it seems like you have to be an asshole first, and then all that other stuff just impairs your judgment instead of being casus belli themselves. I like this, because the killer is then a bit more human.

Additionally, it looks like some people are finally getting it through their heads that it’s time to get back to the root of what made horror movies in the 70s and 80s great. I started out feeling like I knew who would live and who would die, of course, because the trends have gotten way too easy to spot. But by the halfway mark (before anyone actually had died, you understand), I was no longer confident in my picks at all. That’s a good feeling, because it also serves to make everything feel a lot more real.

Most of all, though, from the opening frames, I never felt like they held anything back. Every iota of promise the movie had, it delivered on, including a scenery-chewing finale worthy of Nicholson being directed by Scorsese (although perhaps not in precisely the way you think I mean). Well, almost every iota. There were essentially no boobies, despite half of the female cast being best known for them. (And the topical Paris Hilton jokes were both few and transparent to future viewers who may not get them.) Still, though, I’m prepared to call this the best American horror movie since Scream, or Scream 2 at the outside. (I purposefully leave out Japanese horror and British horror (well, Shaun of the Dead, anyway) to make this comparison. Still, though, it’s high praise. If you see one horror movie this year… well, probably see Dark Water. But if you see one non-Japanese horror movie this year, pick this one. Because it was really, really good.)