SoNowThen,
in your observance of the "rules" that seem to be put on horror films that make them not worth to be reevaluated, isn't your focus only on the smaller details to those films? Really, some of the most interesting work can be done with those things added. The things you said that needed to be there don't really fall into bringing down much of the material. Actually, in my own mind, it is just another rule for another genre that insivisibly is wrapped around most genres and being broken in small and various ways. In my review of Blow Out, I said it was like a brother film to the art film Blow Up, but was comercial instead. The main difference that seems to be between those two kinds of film is that the art film never really goes for answers, it goes for bringing up questions and ambiguilties. Nothing is more frowned upon in Hollywood than that because studio heads feel everything should be answered to please the audience and a lot of the most acclaimed films do this and many other little things that follow invisible rules. The thing is though, the rules never define most of the book, but only the smaller parts and thus movies by people like De Palma can and are interesting becaus of the talent put into the middle. The outcome, if maybe cliche, doesn't really determine the rest of the film.
~rougerum