A promising lineup of classics and new films on day four of FearNYC was highlighted by the NYC premiere of Clowntown. We started off with screenings of And Then There Were None (1945) and the original Nosferatu (1922). And Then There Were None is based on the best-selling Agatha Christie novel and is widely considered one of the best Christie adaptations. Ten people are invited to a remote island by a mysterious Mr. U.N. Owen (clever). When the guests arrive for dinner, a record is playing accusing them all of murder, and then they start dying one by one. Who is the killer? This one will keep you guessing right to the very end. Nosferatu—wildly and, at the time, legally ripped off from Bram Stoker's Dracula—is probably one of the greatest silent films ever made. Max Schreck's Count Orlok is downright creepy and still carries shock value today. Place both films on your movie shelf— Nosferatu for its cultural value; German Gothic 1920's horror film is where it all started, and And Then There Were None because of its role as one of the original whodunits. The recent BBC One miniseries of And Then There Were None, starring Charles Dance, Sam Neill, and Miranda Richardson, is also well worth adding to your collection. Then festival goers were shown the NYC premiere of Head, a slasher film performed by The Elmwood Puppets. It was unique, to say the least. Presented as part of a fictional 80's Tales of the Crypt-type anthology show, Head is about a group of friends who take a trip to a remote New England town to go camping. They learn that their camping site was the scene of a grisly murder years ago, and then one by one, they start getting stalked and decapitated. It's a basic premise for a slasher film, but obviously what makes this film unique is that the entire thing is performed by puppets. You would think that it would be goofy and viewers wouldn't be able to take it seriously, and I certainly didn't at the beginning. But then you forget that you're watching puppets, because the voice acting is so good and the effects are spot-on. Head surprisingly holds its own against other horror films made with limited resources. An interesting buy for larger horror collections. Head was preceded by the short film Do Not Disturb, in which a young man and woman wake up in a strange room tied together with ropes with bells attached to them. If the bells ring, a hulking beast of a man will kill them. Do Not Disturb was terrifying for every second of its 16 minutes. In the 1987 classic monster film The Monster Squad, Dracula and his minions—Wolfman, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a mummy, some vampire girls, and, of course, Frankenstein's monster—are alive and threatening to take over Anytown, USA. It's up to a group of kid monster fanatics to save the day. This film is just so much fun. The kids who make up the Monster Squad look like they're having as much fun fighting monsters as the audience is watching them fight monsters. For kids who grew up with Boris Karloff's Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi's Dracula, watching Monster Squad as an adult must've been awesome, especially watching Wolfman get "kicked in the nards." A welcome addition to any horror collection—or general film collection, for that matter. Finally, the audience got to witness the NYC premiere of Clowntown in which two young couples travel through southern Ohio to get to a country music concert. They run out of gas in a seemingly abandoned town, only to find out it's populated by psychotic clowns. You can probably guess the rest. If you've turned on the news at any time over the last few months, you've seen the reports of clown sightings in small towns all across the country, which makes this film hit a little too close to home for some people. The big problem with Clowntown for me was the the clowns weren't as scary as I thought they would've been. There were scary moments, but they were jump scares and those scares weren't necessarily because they were clowns, if that makes sense. It's like when your little brother or sister thought it would hilarious to hide in the closet and scare you—you could've stuck my sister on screen to pop out at the characters and it would've scared me the same. The clowns weren't convincingly scary; they just looked like some guys who slapped some makeup on their faces, nowhere near the terrifying visages of Tim Curry's It or 2014's Clown. Buy for collections where clown horror films circulate extremely well, but otherwise it's not a necessary purchase. Clowntown was preceded by the short film Blurred Vision—written and shot in 24 hours—about a copycat serial killer who, in the middle of torturing his latest victim, gets an unexpected house call from a detective. Blurred Vision is incredible, and made even more impressive by the fact that the entire thing was made in under 24 hours and on a nonexistent budget. An extremely professional short film. The last movie of the night was the exploitation film Reefer Madness (1936), which tells the story of a trio of drug dealers who try to corrupt innocent teenagers by giving them "reefer" cigarettes, holding wild parties and playing jazz music. It's hilarious. Highly overexaggerated, even back in 1936, it's even more comical nowadays, with several states having legalized marijuana. It's not a necessary purchase but since it's a legendary film known for its unintended comedy and over-the-top antics, many libraries may want to consider. Day Five comes tomorrow, and here's Day One, Day Two, and Day Three!