LETTERS

No fan of horror

IN her relatively short tenure with The Times, film critic Manohla Dargis has made her disdain for horror movies evident, but never more clearly than in her review of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake (" 'Massacre': Gory, With Little Story," Oct. 17). Her reviews make clear she is in no way sympathetic to the potential audience of such films and has little enthusiasm for the genre's history. Roger Ebert, a critic as mainstream as mainstream gets, has championed horror films such as "Dawn of the Dead," "Re-Animator" and "Evil Dead" with his highest ratings. You needn't deploy a horror geek to give the movies a fair shake, just someone with the capacity to enjoy them.

Give Dargis a break -- she will thank you as much as I -- and send her to films that she has some hope of appreciating.