Every couple of years I get a little disheartened and jaded about the genre. The movies aren't good enough, I'll try to reason. Sometimes an even more depressing notion comes to mind. Maybe I've just seen too many of these damn things. Maybe a movie just can't scare me anymore. This past year I've been almost happy to concede that the enjoyment I'll take out of the genre from now on will come from campy, self-referential splatter flicks with little to offer in the way of a good scare. My reviews are peppered with phrases like, “but at least it's fun”. Yes, that's what we all want from a horror film. Fun. Fun-funny-fundy-fun-fun-fun. Wait a minute...

Enter “Them”. This is a horror film. This is not a horror film because it's funny and gory and energetic. This is not a horror film because it's so-bad-its-entertaining. It's a horror film because it's scary. Real scary. Cover-your-eyes-I-can't-look scary.

“Them” starts on a dark country road with a mother and daughter driving home. Something runs into the road, they crash. There's something in the dark around them. Something making a clicking noise, something in the shadows. Several extremely tense moments later...something gets them. The next day Clementine, a local schoolteacher, heads home to her boyfriend, Lucas. They live not far from that same road in an old, large house in the woods. They share dinner, watch some TV, and head to bed. Then in the middle of the night something outside wakes them up and the real tension begins.

It's so simple from here on in. The house is dark and whatever it was that got to that mother and daughter last night is trying get Clementine and Lucas. What or who is it? Why is it attacking them? Why is it chasing them through their own house? While the movie eventually gives you a chilling answer, you're not getting one from me. It's almost incidental, anyway. The real scares in “Them” comes from what you think you see and hear in the dark of the house, and in the woods at night when Clem and Lucas eventually try to make their escape. The filmmakers achieve a remarkable amount of tension and terror using simple, tried and true horror methods. “Them” is all about darkness, noise, and pitch perfect timing. It's fascinating how terrifying and effective this back-to-basics approach to horror really.

And just how effective? Here I am, an few hours later, in the darkness of my bedroom, writing this review. My closet door is slightly ajar, but I just don't trust it enough to get up and close it. Next I find myself reacting nervously to the headlights and noise from a car that's passing my house. God, it feels good to be afraid of the dark again!

-Mike C.