The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.