(The) director Alejandro Amenábar balances actual, terrifying visuals with Hitchcockian red herrings for one of the best debut films in years. The technology might be quaint, but the fear remains resonant.

Amenábar dodges the moral hysteria and hypocritical prurience that infected Joel Schumacher's 8mm three years later, and his cinephilia suffuses the film in mostly exciting ways.

Despite some whopping improbabilities - would snuff movie producers really hide their master tapes in a university storage room? -"Thesis" generates genuine tension

Why would Hollywood allow Joel Schumacher to make 8MM when he could have just remade Thesis, a spectacular (and very prescient) mid-90s thriller?