his spooky season is tinged with a little sadness: just a few weeks ago, William Friedkin passed away at age 87, shortly before his final film premiered. But while won him Best Picture and Director Oscars, arguably his best and best-known film is 1973's . However, Friedkin rejected its ‘horror’ label at first, saying, ‘I never intended to be a horror film.’ He isn't alone was a ‘social thriller’, and Julia Ducournau said her cannibal coming-of-ager was not a horror film as ‘I did not write this movie to scare people’. star Bruce Campbell once told me: ‘When I started out there, horror was just above porno.’ While we've progressed beyond horror being sex-work adjacent, it still doesn't get the respect it deserves.
