I've given this a lot of thought and here's my theory: The worst thing that ever happened to the American horror film was Alfred Hitchcock telling an interviewer that "Psycho" is a comedy. Amateurs who wanted to make their own horror movies read that line and didn't realize three things: Hitch liked to pull interviewers' legs; he left out the part about having to see the movie several times before the humor becomes obvious; and there's only one Hitchcock.

There have been successful horror/comedy hybrids "” Dan O'Bannon's "Return of the Living Dead" may be the funniest death obsession of all time "” but only one director has made that kind of fright flick his stock in trade. Before he became Se