The Loved Ones (2009)

I have a weakness for school dance slashers. They're overwhelmingly terrible, but it's just more fun to watch people get maimed when they're wearing formalwear. I would've liked The Loved Ones even if it had been awful, but it's a smart, surprising, darkly funny horror flick that's a masterpiece by prom movie standards.

Robin McLeavy's Lola is a bubblegum psycho I'd love to see bump arms with the horror movie greats. She dishes out horrors that are so imaginative and fun that the movie never feels like torture porn even at its goriest. Brent could have been a dull or irritating character, but Xavier Samuel plays him perfectly. My only real complaint about the movie is that one of the subplots felt completely pointless. It's easily the most fun I've had watching a horror movie since Cabin in the Woods.

4 walls covered in torsos out of 5.