Director Andrew J. Kuehn has excerpted brief segments of terror and suspense in a wide variety of horror films and strung them together with added commentary, as well as some enacted narrative, to create a compilation of fright-inducing effects.

Halloween actor Donald Pleasence and Dressed to Kill star Nancy Allen provide the commentary on topics such as "sex and terror" (Dressed to Kill, Klute, Ms .45, The Seduction, When a Stranger Calls), loathsome villains (Dracula, Frankenstein, Friday the 13th Part 2, Halloween I & II, Marathon Man, Nighthawks, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Vice Squad, Wait Until Dark, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

), "natural terror" (Alligator, The Birds, The Fly, The Food of the Gods, Frogs, Jaws 1 & 2, Konga, Nightwing), the occult (An American Werewolf in London, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, Carrie, The Fog, The Fury, The Howling, Poltergeist, The Shining), cosmic terror (Alien, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and spoofs (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Hold That Ghost, The Ghost Breakers, Scared Stiff, Phantom of the Paradise, Saturday the 14th).

"[5] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times thought the movie was "often fun" but criticized the "cornball, patently phony audience reaction shots.

"[6] Richard Combs of The Monthly Film Bulletin called it "The That's Entertainment of horror movies—in other words, its dexterity at pasting together clips from a selection of scaries, old and new, is not matched by a glimmer of the historical awareness, or even filmic appreciation, that would make the exercise worthwhile.