It has been for decades, ever since the glowing light of the movie projector became the campfire around which filmmakers told their terrible tales. Quite simply, we like to be scared in the dark, and it's even better when surrounded by shrieking strangers whose collective screams only serve to amplify our experience. It's the roller coaster ride of terror, Raimi likes to say, and the more the merrier as we share the drop that sends our stomachs flying out of our throats. He insists, though, that these movies work only because they offer new takes on frayed-at-the-edges formulas. That's why Raimi's working with little-known (in the U.S.) filmmakers: Takashi Shimizu, brought to Hollywood to remake his Japanese release Ju-On, or The Grudge; and from Hong Kong brothers Danny and Oxide Pang, makers of The Eye and its sequel, which have been bought by Tom Cruise for U.S. makeovers. The Pangs are codirecting Scarecrow for Raimi; The Eye, about a blind violinist whose new corneal implants allow her to see ghosts collecting their victims, is still in development.

"We're all familiar with the conventions of the genre," Raimi says. "A young lady walks down a dark hallway, approaching the door, and just as she's reaching the door with ever increasing close-ups and tension building on the soundtrack, somebody reaches out of the dark to grab her by the throat. But you're so familiar with the cliché … Originality is very important because of what's expected in the dark, in the shadows."

A HISTORY OF HORROR