The Simpsons: Every Treehouse Of Horror Ranked Worst To Best
4. XX. Dial M For Murder; Don't Have A Cow, Mankind; There's No Business Like Moe Business
The most recent brilliant Treehouse Episode once more goes for a black and white style (which is usually an assured marker of quality), adapting Strangers On A Train rather than the film it shares a name with. That'd be too easy.
The best things about episodes like this is they allow Bart to really flex his muscles he's clearly destined to be a serial killer if he lets his full potential grow, and the Treehouses let us live that alternate universe temporarily. The whole this is also a loving and very clever homage to Hitchcock's wider body of work.
Don't Have A Cow, Mankind is another zombie segment, with more modern influences, and it's another strong one, particularly as it successfully gets the suspense right.
The final segment is a little weaker, with Moe leading a Demon Barber homage, riffing on Moe's long-running obsession with "Midge". It's a nice progression of that story, and like some of the better segments it feels lie an alternate reality that is very closely linked to the mainline reality of the show. It's also no accident that this is ranked so highly and all three segments are horror, by the way.
There's also a great opening sequence playing on the eternal pull of classic Universal monsters and the diluting influence of modern pop culture reference points. It's almost like they knew they do too much of that same dilution themselves...