‘The appeal of horror movies has always been about confronting death…’
As a horror film fanatic, I’ve now watched countless documentaries on the subject and while they vary wildly in quality, the best horror docs tell us something about the nature of fear, about what makes us crave death and destruction and how that fits into society more generally. Nightmares in Red, White and Blue from director Andrew Monument and writer Joseph Maddrey is a fascinating whistle-stop tour through the chequered history of American horror movies…
Narrated by genre legend Lance Henriksen and featuring extensive interviews with John Carpenter, George A. Romero and Joe Dante (among others), Nightmares in Red, White and Blue (subtitled: The Evolution of the American Horror Film) is the definitive document of horror in America. Maddrey’s excellent script repeatedly links popular horror movies with contemporaneous social anxieties such as the fear of war, the fear of nuclear destruction and the fear of the ‘other’ to craft a video essay that really gets to the dark heart of what makes horror films so popular.
Covering the silent films of the 1910s and ’20s, the monster movies of the ’50s, the video nasties of the ’70s, plus the ’80s slasher boom, torture porn and everything in between, Monument’s film manages to pack so much into its skinny 90 minute run time that I was genuinely desperate for more by the time the credits rolled. The talking heads assembled here really get this genre and to a man (for every person interviewed here is a man – a regrettable omission that would never happen in 2024) every one of them has something interesting and unique to offer on the genre that they all clearly adore.
Nightmares in Red, White and Blue is one of the best horror documentaries out there and as it’s available freely on YouTube, it should be considered essential viewing for even the most casual horror fan.