The Happening

One-hit-wonder M. Night Shyamalan further galvanizes the nickname given him by his detractors ("Shyamalama-ding-dong") with yet another pretentious movie that plays like a drawn-out "Twilight Zone" episode. An unknown phenomenon attacks the Northeast portion of America, where people suddenly freeze in their steps before committing suicide. High school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), and their friend’s 8-year-old daughter Jess attempt to escape the danger that seems to arrive with the wind. Stranded in an unpopulated part of Pennsylvania, the three hang on to survival even as those around them drop like flies. Poorly written dialogue and Shyamalan’s signature overwrought direction infects his actors, ruining every performance. A false-bottom crisis decision sheds no light of resolution on the dystopian story. You could make a case that "The Happening" is a decimal point better than Shyamalan’s last movie because he barely appears in it. If only he’d switch to directing television, movie audiences wouldn’t have to woefully repeat "Shyamalama-ding-dong." Oh wait, they’d do that anyway.
Rated R, 92 mins. (D)

The Mother of Tears: The Third Mother

Italian horror maestro Dario Argento finishes the "Three Mothers" trilogy that he began in 1977 with his popular film "Suspiria." Occasioned by the kind of visually fascinating Grand Guignol set pieces Argento is famous for, "The Mother of Tears" nevertheless ends the trilogy with a whimper. Argento’s famous actress daughter Asia phones in her performance as Sarah Mandy, an art restoration student who witnesses the ritualistic murder of a co-worker inside Rome’s Museum of Ancient Art, yet refuses to believe her boyfriend’s assertions about a group of witches inciting acts of violence all over the city. Clunky dialogue and jerky plotting hopscotch from one blood-splattered sequence to another, and it’s during these sexually tinged scenes of brutal savagery that Argento pays off on his promise as a visionary master of the horrifically surreal. Erotic undercurrents expand as the film approaches its outsized climax. This is a foreign horror movie that’s all about style and shock value. The fruit of Argento’s mad vision is an acquired taste, but there’s plenty to chew on here.

Not Rated, 98 mins. (C+)

The Signal

An early contender for the worst movie of 2008, this apocalyptic schlock-fest refuses to admit that it's just another zombie slasher pic. David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry and Dan Bush are the writing/directing team that takes turns with the film's three acts, referred to as "transmissions," but what exactly they're feebly attempting to get across never connects. An adulterous couple watch a '70s gore flick before the girl Mya returns to her frat house living conditions where her husband Lewis suddenly goes ballistic after getting a bizarre signal from the TV. Mya escapes but Lewis wrecks havoc on the lives of a married couple of New Year's Eve party hosts. Cheap, gaudy and mean spirited, The Signal is a complete waste of time.
Rated R, 101 mins. (F)

One Missed Call

Ed Burns entrenches himself as Hollywood's go-to-B-movie actor with an excruciatingly dull remake of a Japanese horror movie that, like every other Hollywood attempt at translating the genre, fails from the start. Burns plays Jack Andrews, a hunky detective in a nondescript college town where psychology student Beth (played by non-actress Shannyn Sossamon) witnesses her friends dying in freak accidents after receiving calls on their cell phones with a recording of their screams before each tragedy occurs. In keeping with the predictable demands of Japanese horror, a troubled little girl is responsible for the deadly phenomenon that gives the picture its body count. Director Eric Valette doesn't know the first thing about atmosphere, suspense or surprise. If the first wide release movie of 2008 is an indicator of the kind of year a writers’ strike Hollywood has in store, we may all be watching DVDs.

Rated PG-13, 86 mins. (D) (One Star)

The Orphanage

Guillermo del Toro executive produced this richly layered Spanish gothic horror movie by director Juan Antonio Bayona and written by Sergio G. Sanchez. Laura (Belen Rueda) and husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) adopt Simon (Roger Princep), an HIV positive boy, to live in a new home on the Spanish coast, a disused mansion orphanage from Laura’s childhood. Simon starts cavorting with ghosts and disappears after driving his mother to the limits of sanity. In searching for her son, Laura uncovers answers to a deeper mystery about the fate of other children at the orphanage. Stylistically impeccable and organically suspenseful, "The Orphanage" is a fun horror movie with well-placed shocks that will unnerve even the least suggestible audiences.

Rated PG-13, 105 mins. (B+) (Four Stars)

Stephen King’s The Mist

It took director Frank Darabont to write a better ending for Stephen King’s novella before he could tackle making the best true horror movie to come out in years. A father and young son become stranded in a populated grocery store in Maine where a deadly mist has enshrouded the area as part of a terrible storm. Hidden in the thick fog are gigantic insects and prehistoric creatures that ensnare the store’s inhabitants in a grip of fear that brings out their worst and best qualities. Marcia Gay Harden is magnificent as a Christian fanatic, and Thomas Jane gives the best performance of his career in a low-budget, retro horror movie that is equal parts satire, suspense, and surprise. "Stephen King’s The Mist" is a reminder of what a great horror movie is all about.

Rated R, 127 mins. (A-) (Four Stars)

30 Days of Night

Director David Slade ("Hard Candy") overreaches with a visually droning vampire tale set in snowy Alaska during its annual month-long period of darkness (hiring a decent lighting designer might have been a good place to start). Local sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett) has more to worry about than his stranded ex-wife Stella (Melissa George) as a team of black-suit-wearing vampires systematically kill off the remaining residents of the town. Based on graphic novelist Steve Niles’s book, "30 Days of Night" is an unabashed gore fest. If only more attention was given to the backstory of the vampires and their motivations, and if only they spoke Romanian instead of the clucking made-up language they utter. What starts out as a promising horror movie ends up buried beneath a poorly lit sequence of chase scenes. You can’t have horror without suspense. Don’t they teach the films of Alfred Hitchcock anymore in film school?

Rated R, 103 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

The Last Winter

Writer/director Larry Fessenden ("Wendigo") whips up a whirlwind of suspense and horror in the Arctic region of Northern Alaska where an oil company’s dredging plans meet with supernatural elements at their frigid base. Ron Perlman ("Hellboy") plays Pollock a nasty oil company boss who cares not a whit for the reality of global warming that consumes the attention of ecological consultants James Hoffman (James Le Gros) and Elliot (Jamie Harrold). Melting permafrost stalls the company’s drilling plans while Pollock’s former love interest Abby (Connie Britton) beds down with James. Herds of weird ghost animals run through the Arctic darkness as death creeps up on the ever diminishing crew. Fessenden's best film to date is a horror movie built on eerie atmosphere and unspoken terror. Director of photography Magni Agustsson achieves beautiful visual textures and distances that allow hidden meanings to saturate the psychology of the audience.

Not Rated, 100 mins. (B) (Three Stars)

Captivity

What could have at least been a halfway decent house-of-horrors scary movie digresses into a puddle of fake blood in this stale little thriller that peaks when its resident baddie mixes a batch of eyeballs in an electric blender. Elisha Cuthbert plays New York model Jennifer Tree who is kidnapped ostensibly for being a vapid hottie by a New Jersey (think severe underachiever) who videotapes himself torturing such victims. There’s a not-so-tricky plot twist you’ll probably see coming a mile away, and plenty of Grand Canyon-size plot holes to undermine any actual scares the movie might have conjured up. Oh, I’ll admit that there is a guilty pleasure in seeing such truly inferior acting as is on display here, especially when it comes at the hands of a formerly respected director (Roland Joffe - "The Killing Fields"), but guilty pleasures like these only go so far toward achieving entertainment value.

Rated R, 85 mins. (D) (One Star)

1408

Adapted from a short story by Stephen King, Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom ("Derailed") skillfully helms this twisting one-man showcase in terror. Horror novelist Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a debunker of paranormal myths. He tackles his latest book project, "Ten Nights in Haunted Hotel Rooms," with the been-there-done-that cynicism of a wizened professional knocking out yet another routine assignment. Things get exciting when Enslin reads a news clipping about a mysterious "room 1408" in New York's Dolphin Hotel, where more than 50 guests have perished. With his curiosity properly piqued, our plucky author disregards the earnest warnings of the hotel manager Mr. Olin (snappily played by Samuel L. Jackson), and enters the room with tape recorder in hand. The alarm clock begins a one-hour countdown as walls move and the landscape of the room becomes a demonic presence taunting the author to lose hold on his already loosened sanity. The triumph of "1408" rests squarely on John Cusack's perfectly pitched performance as an unshakable disbeliever repeatedly pushed to the brink of suicide by memories of his own past. Room 1408 presents a psychological, paranormal and physical juggernaut that will curl your insides in knots.

Rated PG-13, 94 mins. (B+) (Four Stars)

Blood & Chocolate

Based on a novel by Annette Curtis Klause, with a title pulled from Hermann Hesse’s "Steppenwolf," German director Katja Von Garnier ("Bandits") uses Bucharest, Romania as a vibrant backdrop for yet another predictable werewolf movie, albeit with a slight twist. Vivian Gandillion (Agnes Bruckner) returns to her original home of Romania after her family is hunted and murdered in a Colorado forest house from which Vivian escapes by running into the woods before turning into a full-fledged wolf (AKA a loup garoux). The 19-year-old Vivian works for a local chocolatier when she isn’t hanging out with her pack, led by Gabriel (Oliver Martinez), who meet monthly to hunt a single human beneath the light of the full moon. Although betrothed to the ageless Gabriel, who must marry a new mate every seven years, Vivian is romantically tempted by the human affection of Aiden Galvin (Hugh Dancy – "Ella Enchanted") an American graphic novelist researching the legend of the loup garoux for his next book. The story is a no frills template of every other modern teen werewolf tale except that the werewolves here are actual wild wolves rather than man/beast creations.

Rated PG-13, 98 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

Black Sheep

The lush hills of New Zealand provide an ironic backdrop for this witty little horror show about a farm where genetically altered sheep have turned into devilish zombies. Sheep-phobic Henry (Nathan Meister) returns to his family’s sheep farm in order to sell out his share of the estate to his bully brother Angus (Peter Feeney). Little does Henry know that mad scientist Dr. Rush (Tandi Wright) has been cooking up some very troubling experiments that a couple of dunderhead animal activists have stumbled onto in their attempt to sabotage the farm. Peter Jackson’s WETA studio brings the gory special effects to shrieking life under writer/director Jonathan King’s hat-tipping homage to Jackson’s "Evil Dead" style of fast and fun horror movie. It’s a respectable addition to the genre.

Not Rated, 87 mins. (B+) (Four Stars)

Fido

"Fido" is a black comedy that subscribes to the adage that any genre can be improved with the addition of zombies, with a capital Z. Set in a time-warped ‘50s American Dream era, the movie happily rolls out retro trappings that promise some salient social commentary, perhaps about illegal immigrants, that never comes to fruition. Empty-headed Americans live inside walled-in "ZomCon"-protected communities that keep out zombie cannibals roaming the earth. The irony is that families also keep domesticated zombies, with the aid of special collars, as servants, pets and even lovers as is the case with Mr. Theopolis (Tim Blake Nelson) who keeps a frisky young female zombie. "Timmy and Lassie"-styled protagonist Timmy Robinson (K'Sun Ray) adopts the zombie (Billy Connolly) that his mother Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss) procures, and names him Fido, against the wishes of his conservative dad Bill (Dylan Baker). However, Fido is not the good-boy that Timmy imagines, and it takes some secret assistance from mom to keep things status quo.

Rated R, 91 mins. (C+) (Two Stars)

Hostel: Part II

Similarly gory and exploitative as its torture-porn predecessor, writer/director Eli Roth’s horror sequel is nothing more than a makeover of "Hostel" substituted with female characters. Roth fumbles with an overlong set-up that introduces three female American art students travelling in Europe when they’re sidetracked to Slovakia by a foreign beauty promising to take them to the best natural spa in the world. The spa is, of course, a ruse for kidnapping the girls (played by Lauren German, Bijou Phillips and Heather Matarazzo) and transporting them to the old "killing factory" where wealthy clients bid on which girl they will brutally murder with a wide assortment of power tools and knives. The centerpiece of the movie is an erotic bloodbath that hits a new watermark for lesbian necrophilia.

Rated R, 94 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Severance

"Severance" is just enough of an exploitation satire (think, Roger Corman in his heyday) to hold your interest beyond its gratuitous knife, blood and breast recipe for suspense and shock. A group of international yuppie corporate defense coworkers get caught in an Eastern European trap of horrors when their bus breaks down. Okay, so maybe there really isn’t enough satire to compensate for another scream-and-chase slasher flick, but it does try a little. The Eastern European landscape of remote back woods adds another frightening element to the gore.

Rated R, 96 mins. (C+) (Two Stars)

The Hills Have Eyes 2

Gratuitous, slow-as-molasses and interminably dull-witted, this is a horror movie for no one. A troop of trainee soldiers on duty in Kandahar find plenty of mutated monster men to defend against in the middle of a rocky former U.S. nuclear testing site. Atrocious acting accompanies every labored shot of head splattering Karo-syrup-blood death inflicted by a bunch of cave-dwelling dudes intent on impregnating a female U.S. soldier that they kidnap. A nude grimy young mutant woman gives birth to a bloody stillborn baby as a hardcore introduction to a horror movie with no tempo and, more importantly, no insight into the personalities of its villain freak tribe. Dialogue runs the gambit from "Shitman the Barbarian" to "smelling like shit" in a crappy stinker where even the cameraman blows. The title is the only link to Wes Craven's original "Hills Have Eyes" movie.
Rated R, 89 mins. (F) (One Star)

Dead Silence

A young couple, apparently living in '70s Americana, gets a cryptic package containing a ventriloquist's dummy that promptly murders the man's pregnant wife with hideous panache. Accused of the killing by smarmy local homicide detective Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg), husband Jamie (Ryan Kwanten) takes the devil doll to his hometown to get at the root of a curse that points to a deceased ventriloquist named Mary Shaw. The detective's late model car is just one of many incongruities that plague the picture as Jamie questions the old-fashioned townsfolk, and his ruthless but wealthy father, about the hex that leads him to a deserted theater where Mary Shaw once performed. Plodding and bereft of suspense, "Dead Silence" is an irredeemable jumble of cliché genre fragments.
Rated R, 90 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

The Host

Asian monster movies get a big jolt of postmodern temperament and special effects execution from South Korean writer/director Bong Jooh-ho as he takes the genre to a new level. Using an actual event of U.S. Army toxic dumping in Seoul’s Han River as its stepping-off point, the plot unleashes a giant tadpole creature capable of doing as much damage on land as in the water. A riverside snack stand owner (Byeon Heui-bong), his son Gang-du (Song Gang-ho) and granddaughter Hyeon-seo (Ko A-sung) are among the first unfortunate populace to be attacked by the monster that absconds into the river with the teenaged Hyeon-seo in its grip. A government quarantine and an impotent U.S. military abet against Gang-du’s efforts to save his daughter from the beast until he escapes to carry out his mission. Part social satire, horror, comedy and family drama "The Host" is an exciting example of cinematic bravura that signals a new day for Asian cinema.

Not Rated, 119 mins. (B+)

The Hitcher

Hollywood’s endless string of no-account remakes gets another knot with this Michael Bay-produced lukewarm update of Robert Harmon’s 1986 original. A young couple (played by Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton), on their way to a spring break fiesta, are intimidated into picking up a stranded hitchhiker (Sean Bean) in the rain. Their surly passenger, John Ryder, quickly reveals his homicidal behavior and the lovers find themselves accused of his murders by police while still being hunted by the menacing madman they can’t escape. The writers attempt to spice up a litany of bloody set pieces with jolts of plot surprises that backfire under the film’s lack of suspense. "The Hitcher" is a pointless exercise in violence and bloodletting that approaches its subject without a hint of humor or redeeming social commentary.

Rated R, 84 mins. (C-)

Perfume - The Story of a Murderer

Opulent and grotesque, this brassy achievement from director Tom Twyker ("Run, Lola, Run") is based on the best-selling novel by German writer Patrick Suskind about a bizarre serial killer in 18th century France. Ben Whishaw is a revelation of exceptional acting skill as Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the orphan son of a cruel fishmonger, who compensates for his lack of personal odor with an uncanny sense of smell that he uses to categorize every aspect of his surroundings. The movie takes on an epic quality as Grenouille grows into adulthood while apprenticing under Giuseppe Baldini (well played by Dustin Hoffman), a famous Parisian perfumer who takes advantage of Grenouille's otherworldly olfactory perception to invigorate his flagging perfume business. But Grenouille abuses his newfound knowledge for fabricating fragrances by killing nubile virgins to extract the essence of their aroma with the goal of creating a supreme perfume that will substitute for his lack of scent and emotional empathy. Although Twyker loses his grip on the material during the film's truncated series of endings, he evokes an abundant social canvas of primal urges and human weaknesses. Rated R, 147 mins. (B-)

Saw III

The "Saw" horror franchise gets its weakest installment as torture mastermind Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) and his new disciple Amanda (Shawnee Smith) kidnap doctor Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) to perform brain surgery on the dying madman. Even on his deathbed Jigsaw manages to orchestrate a clockwork of horrors for his victims. Jeff (Angus Macfayden) struggles with barbarous tests related to the vengeance he seeks against the man who killed his son in a car accident years earlier. The extreme gore is gratuitous, and character development non-existent in a movie packed with the cookie-cutter visual design of the previous two films. Torturer, victim and audience become one.

Rated R, 107 mins. (C-)

The Descent

Traumatizing terror serves as the ultimate right to passage for surviving the horrors of the real world in British writer/director Neil Marshall’s ("Dog Soldiers") gory and cathartic horror film about a group of six women adventurers on a doomed spelunking journey. After years of annual adventure trips with her two fellow female daredevils Juno and Beth, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) loses her husband and daughter in a horrifying car accident. One-year later Sarah’s friends arrange a caving expedition, with the addition of three more adventurers, deep in the Appalachian Mountains to help break Sarah out of her depression via a literal form of submersion therapy. The group leader Juno (Natalie Mendoza - "Moulin Rouge") plans the excursion to be especially challenging by surreptitiously choosing a previously unexplored cave for the six women to test the limits of their fears. Juno’s ambitious deceit backfires when the group is trapped by a rockslide that blocks their exit. Escaping the claustrophobic confines of the vast cave becomes more desperate when a clan of blind flesh-eating creatures stalk the women.

Rated R, 99 mins. (B)

Monster House

"Monster House" may well be the first mainstream animated exploitation movie. Debut director Gil Kenan upgrades the creepy animation style of "The Polar Express" to a more apt genre of kiddie horror movie and renders a disturbing stew of gratuitous violence, funky sexual tension and lurking physical menace. Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, and Pamela Pettler wrote the script and the evidence of too many chefs spoiling the narrative broth is apparent throughout the movie. A demonic mobile mansion sits in a normal suburban neighborhood across the street from DJ (Mitchel Musso) a curious little boy obsessed with documenting the evil actions of its notoriously vicious owner, the depraved Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi). Emboldened by his best friend (Sam Lerner) and a cunning faux Girl Scout (Spencer Locke), DJ and his friends attempt to put the house to sleep with lots of cough syrup even after the rampaging building murders two local police officials. By the time the animated child characters are playing with dynamite to blow up the residence, some parents will have already escorted their children from the cinema.
Rated PG, 85 mins. (C-)

The Omen

While not a shot-for-shot copy of Richard Donner’s far superior 1976 original "Omen," David Seltzer --the screenwriter of both films—barely updates his original script for this gratuitous remake. The effect is a somnambulistic horror movie by John Moore ("The Flight of The Phoenix") a director oblivious to the importance of tone and location. Filmed primarily in Prague, the movie carries no visual anchor to contextualize its events. For all of Liev Schreiber’s sincere efforts at playing the adoptive father to Satan’s son, he doesn’t hold a candle to Gregory Peck’s incarnation in the original. Most glaring is the distance between Lee Remick’s piercing blue eyes and Julia Stiles’ blank stare. Nonetheless, there is an obligatory decapitation scene that Moore executes with particular glee. If you haven’t seen the original; rent it, but if you must see the latest inferior Hollywood remake on the big screen, know that you will be dissapointed.

Rated R, 110 mins. (C-)

An American Haunting

The frights are few and the moment of horrific revelation is a big letdown in writer/director Courtney Solomon’s cinematic treatment of Brent Monahan’s novel "The Bell Witch: An American Haunting." A modern-day prologue, about a frightened girl living with her divorced mother in a snowy country house, gives way to 1800s Tennessee where patriarch John Bell (Donald Sutherland) is publicly humiliated in a court hearing for charging 20% interest on a loan he made to an impoverished neighbor suspected of being a witch. Reincarnated as John’s daughter, Betsy Bell (Rachel Hurd-Wood) soon becomes possessed by demonic interference that flings her young body around the house like rag doll. Sissy Spacek plays John’s anxiety-ridden wife Lucy.

Rated PG-13, 90 mins. (C-)

The Hills Have Eyes

This remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 cult-classic comes with Craven’s seal of approval considering he produced the updated version directed by French horror protégé Alexandre Aja ("High Tension"). Aja and co-screenwriter Gregory Levasseur flesh out Craven’s skeletal original script with broad strokes of Cold War nuclear predominance to frame a much gorier and disturbing narrative motif than Craven’s original film. A couple celebrates their 25^th wedding anniversary on a road trip with their Suburban pulling an ’88 Airstream trailer to California through the New Mexico desert with their three children, son-in-law, granddaughter and two dogs. A cannibal group of mutated victims of ‘50s era nuke testing lay in wait. Alexander Aja ratchets up the crusty gore as the tourists’ numbers diminish and the remaining few are left to fight for their survival. Slack pacing in the film’s first act, and a drawn-out third act, weaken its gut-wrenching horrific punch.

Rated R, 105 mins. (B-)

Slither

If there were still drive-in cinemas around, "Slither" would be a perfect B horror movie to sit in your car and watch to the sound of shrieks and one-liner jokes blasting around a hilly parking lot from so many tiny speakers. Small town Americana is turned upside-down when an alien-bearing meteor crashes in the woods only to be discovered by Grant (Michael Rooker) the rebuffed-but-loyal husband of Starla (Elizabeth Banks), the cutest little filly in town. Grant gets impaled by an alien stinger that sends him on a feeding frenzy of livestock and the horny seduction of a local slut who in turn blows up bigger than a Cadillac before releasing thousands of slug creatures. The slugs turn nearly everyone in the town into walking zombie extensions of Grant’s off-kilter personality. Bill Pardy ("Serenity") is perfect as the town’s manly chief of police still carrying a torch for Starla. "Slither" has just the right formula of humor, suspense, and over-the-top gore to keep audiences jumping and laughing in their seats.

Rated R, 93 mins. (B+)

When A Stranger Calls

Amateurish direction by Simon West ("Laura Croft: Tomb Raider") contributes to the utter failure of this pathetic update of the original film of the same title. As punishment by her parents, for using too many cell phone minutes to break up with her cheating high school boyfriend, Jill (Camilla Belle) is sent to baby-sit at a remote but well appointed modern mansion. Young Jill’s insecure nature gets the best of her when a stalker breathes heavily into the phone during his repeated but brief calls. The movie goes from dull to boring until Jill’s stalker makes his attack. You stare at the movie waiting for suspense that never arrives.

Rated PG-13, 87 mins. (D)

Final Destination 3

The third installment in the crafty Final Destination franchise, once again under the guiding eye of director James Wong (co-writer and director on the first "Final Destination"), ups the stakes on its trademark Grand Guignol set pieces to give audiences a series of escalating gross-out thrills. In sticking to its well-established formula, the opening sequence—this time on a deadly rollercoaster ride during a grad night celebration—lays out an eye-popping series of fast action deaths that traumatize the teen survivors whose lives will be threatened for the duration of the movie. Although perhaps not as hair-raising as the highway pile-up intro of the second "Final Destination" (directed by David Richard Ellis), the carnival-based catastrophe resonates with the sickening fear induced by amusement rides and sets a youthful tone for the subsequent violence to flourish. Death becomes a character with a mean sense of completion in a movie that, like a rollercoaster ride, includes lots of jolting twists and drops into an abyss of imminent destiny.

Saw II

One-part "Silence Of The Lambs," one-part "Ten Little Indians" and still carrying a lasting dosage of "Se7en," "Saw II" reveals a horror franchise to be reckoned with. A superior grade of actors and a virtuosic application of gore make the sequel more entertaining than the original even if the movie bogs down in it’s own Karo syrup blood and nebulous plot excursions. A group of eight strangers attempt to escape from a sealed house ingeniously booby-trapped by serial killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) while Detective Eric Mason (Donnie Wahlberg – "The Sixth Sense") attempts to rescue his teen son Daniel (Eirk Knudsen) from among the trapped victims.

Rated R, 91 mins. (B-)

The Fog

Rupert Wainwright's ("Stigmata") remake of John Carpenter's superior 1980 film is a childish exercise in how not to make a scary horror movie. A proliferation of shattering-glass sequences punctuates an anemic story about a group of seamen ghosts that return to a coastal town 100-years later to reap vengeance on a group of locals. Tom Welling ("Smallville") does his best James Marsden impersonation, and Selma Blair shows that she really needs to take more acting classes. "The Fog" is a tedious and disappointing movie.
Rated PG-13, 100 mins. (D+)

The Devil’s Rejects

Controversial for its gratuitous use of exploitative violence and gore "The Devil’s Rejects" is ultimately unredeemable for its wrongheaded attempt at glamorizing a band of cocky and detestable serial killers. Writer/director Rob Zombie’s vaguely kindred sequel to his slapdash "House of 1000 Corpses" finds the satanic ‘Firefly’ family of quasi cannibals forced on the lam after a bloody showdown with cops attempting to bust up their serial killing enterprise. William Forsythe takes on thankless acting duties as the film’s temporary protagonist Sheriff Wydell before a third act bait-and-switch substitutes the serial killers as the would-be ‘likable’ characters the audience is expected to empathize with. "The Devil’s Rejects" is a fascist piece of neoconservative filmmaking that should be ignored with a vengeance.

Rated R, 101 mins. (F) (Zero Stars)

George A. Romero's Land Of The Dead

A zombie anti-hero emerges in the guise of a black mechanic known as "Big Daddy" (Eugene Clark) in George A. Romero's fourth installment in the series of films that famously began with his heart-stopping magnum opus "Night Of The Living Dead" (1968). Big Daddy leads an army of beautifully gruesome zombies as they seek entry into their demolished city's well-defended skyscraper of civility that protects the richest members of society. Romero keeps the political and social satire subtle but consistent as a group of heavily armed mercenary cowboys perpetrate violent anarchy against zombie civilians whose future is as bleak as that of their occupiers. Gory sight gags and intestine eating abound in this must-see movie for fans of the horror genre.

Rated R, 94 mins. (B)

Dark Water

This miserable remake of a 2002 Japanese thriller ("Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara") about a little devil ghost girl haunting for attention, should forever put the last nail in the coffin of Hollywood remakes of this played-out splinter genre that rendered such dogs as "The Ring" and its sequel. Jennifer Connelly plays Dahlia Williams a recently separated mother whose young daughter Ceci develops an imaginary friend after they move into a faulty high rise apartment building on Roosevelt Island. Ceilings drip with moldy water and every faucet exudes brown crud as Dahlia seeks aid from her questionable attorney (Tim Roth) to protect her from her husband's accusations that she's losing her mind. Esteemed Brazilian director Walter Salles ("The Motorcycle Diaries") falls flat on his face on his first Hollywood outing with a horror movie that will bore you to tears.    

Rated PG-13, 105 mins. (D)