Dante Tomaselli is a man on a mission. As a kid, he was, like any other kid, plagued by nightmares. Now, he makes movies out of them that he shares with the rest of the world. I saw Horror in a local movie house upon its release in 2002 and I was confused, not sure what to make of the flashbacks and flashforwards, metaphors and dreams, all twined in a vague nightmarish plot with an equally vague storyline.

A girl (Lizzy Mahon) burns her finger while removing Christmas lights from a house, she gets abducted while trying to get inside. Next, four adolescents run away from a drug rehab clinic and head for a minister (Vincent Lamberti) who's made vague promises to them. The abducted girl lives at the reverend's place now and he and his wife (Christie Sanford) dope her up, seemingly to keep her under control. Her grandfather (The Amazing Kreskin) seems to bring comfort to her. The escaped kids arrive, and things leap into a swirling nightmare mode with shifting reality levels and multi-layered plot connections, all kept into loose context by metaphors like a goat, a shape shifting painting, a key ring, floating pumpkins, a handgun, and zombies. In the end everything falls together into a cycle - see for yourself to know what I mean.

I found myself intrigued, as well, somehow. I just couldn't get the movie out of my head. Isn't this movie what daily life is essentially all about after all? I can take an average day in my life and be happy to have accomplished whatever it was I set out to do when I woke up in the morning. Most days just take me away on its tidal wave and I'm only floating on it to end up in my bed wondering what's going to be next. Of course, there's the usual format of tasks and duties, but most of the day's events just come unexpectedly and I just improvise my way through them, driven by basic instincts like will, anxiety and reason. We, the horror movie audience, don't fight battles between good and bad, we don't save the world from alien dangers and I, for one, most definitely never encounter desperate yet beautiful women suffering from amnesia or flying humanoids with fangs. Don't worry, I'm not here to argue their entertainment value, or thrill potential even, in any movie. Our favourite horror movies, at best, target at our primal fears.

Darkness, death, shocks, pain, the unknown, and still, a horror movie can, at least to an extent, be a representation of reality. But it has to resort to metaphors when a director decides to take the movie into that particular direction. Real life is just too ample to capture into a sequence of framed moving images lasting, say, an hour and a half. I digress, or do I? Horror is a thought-provoking movie, an allegory of life as it is, with the inclusion the nightmare life can be. And sometimes reality defies the worst nightmare anyone will ever have. However, isn't reality but a beholding? An interpretation of sensorial recordings? A mind screw? And isn't our life just like Horror, maybe planned, but mostly driven by events that hardly have any discernable cause or reason?

When Elite released Horror on DVD, I just couldn't wait to put myself to
the test again. And my conclusion is inevitable. It's a little masterpiece in its own right. It delivers everything a good horror movie could possibly offer: an unsettling house (including one of Tomaselli's leitmotifs: an eerie attic), out of the blue delusions, walking dead (with the best zombie walk I've ever seen, filmed moving backwards and reversed again) and other demons, gore (not abundant but very effectful), scares under the bed, shifting realities and images, fine acting, focused directing with superb camera handling and subtle atmospheres, and so on and so forth. There's not much dialogue in the movie, but whatever's said by the characters is relevant in the context of the viewer's interpretation of the images. Horror is essentially an interactive movie.

It doesn't have a straightforward story, but you make it as you watch it,
from the images, sounds and words that Tomaselli gives us. The same way we live our lives: shaped after plans but driven by what occurs.I have rewatched this movie quite a few times, and it still gets better after each viewing. Horror is a movie made by a devoted and talented director, who doesn't disacknowledge his inspirational sources (most notably Dario Argento), but adds a very distinct touch of his own. It shouldn't be missed by anyone appreciating movies from the likes of Argento, David Lynch or David Cronenberg, and by anyone with a more than casual interest for the genre and its artistic undertows. Come prepared and bring your best Mulholland Drive attention span. Those who prefer to have their stories spoon-fed better steer clear.

DVD notes: the Elite DVD distribution is packed with fine extras, has a beautiful rich transfer (aspect ratio 1.85:1) and an excellent Dolby 5.1 soundtrack. The extras include Tomaselli's interesting and entertaining feature length commentary, behind the scenes footage, a session conducted by The Amazing Kreskin, trailers and a short movie that was later to develop into Tomaselli's first full-length film, Desecration.