I suspect that a lot of horror fans will dismiss, dislike or just plain old avoid James Wan’s Dead Silence, and that’s kind of a shame. The gorehounds who walk in expecting yet another example of Saw-style lunacy may walk out sorely disappointed, while those who were raised on the quick-cut hyper-stylized horror flicks of the ’90s may miss the point entirely. What I saw in Dead Silence was an admirable attempt to capture some of the old-school gothic magic found in pulpy classics like House of Wax or Dead of Night. That’s not to say that Wan’s second feature is destined to go down as a cult classic, but that there’s enough old-fashioned chiller charm to keep this horror geek happy. More

It’s not just that mounting a remake of Robert Harmon’s cult classic “The Hitcher” is a bad idea; it’s that this slapped-together afterthought of a remake doesn’t even come close to capturing what made the original such a ferociously refreshing piece of genre filmmaking in the first place. Basically it’s just another example of a producer getting hold of a popular “title,” and then doing all he can to churn out a new version for the youth of today, without ever really having a clue as to why the older folks love the flick so damn much. It’s a shallow and masturbatory exercise, basically, and the fact that the new “Hitcher” made less than $19 million in worldwide box office should be a welcome indication that this endless “remake parade” has finally run its course. We hope. More

From the garish early advertising, the “accidental” firestorm that hit when the MPAA was not amused, the rating embargo, the release delays, and the “hushed tones” that inevitably arise whenever an allegedly ultra-nasty new horror flick hits the scene, After Dark and Lionsgate’s “Captivity” has been the recipient of tons of free press. If only the movie were even remotely worthy of all the discussion. What was originally slapped together to cash in on the “torture porn” sub-genre in shallow and ham-fisted fashion now arrives as the final nail in the gore-nography category. The slasher flicks died out for a while in the late ’80s — and then they came back, big-time. (For a while.) And so it now goes for the “extreme” horror stuff. Aside from Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” remix and the inevitable next chapter in the “Saw” series, I bet we’ll soon be seeing a lot less of the gristly stuff. At least in theaters, and at least for a few years. More

What I find most amusing about the “torture porn” flicks like Saw, Hostel, and The Hills Have Eyes is this: The outraged and the intimidated choose to dismiss these films as mindless gore-fests, when in fact they’re all a pretty effective bunch of psychological horror movies. It’s the threat (and eventual arrival) of the red stuff that keeps us gritting our teeth and wringing our hands through these films. Some would have you believe that Eli Roth’s “Hostel: Part 2″ is nothing but a 91-minute slog through wall-to-wall body parts, when in fact the flick is more of a tight-fisted slow burn that whacks you in face with two or three really horrifying sequences. More

If you’ve got a soft spot for trashy pulp thrillers like Malice, Arlington Rd., and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, then save a place in your weekend for Bruce Evans’ “Mr. Brooks,” a high-budget psycho-thriller that lets two of our more “sedate” leading men cut loose with some entertainingly juicy performances. The flick’s got a little fat on its bones, plus it wanders off in some really strange directions, but it’s also very well-shot, stuffed with a small handful of surprises, and (as nutty as it might get) the movie sure isn’t boring. As a “grown-ups” alternative to all the summer movie chaos out there, I’ve no problem at all recommending the flick. More

The Hills Have Eyes 2 takes place in the same patch of rock-strewn desert that we visited in the recent remake. This time around, instead of a generally helpless family being terrorized by a group of man-eating mutants, we get a crew of amazingly clueless National Guard soldiers who venture into the wrong patch of the world, and really live to regret it. (OK, only some of ‘em live to regret it.) More

It’s a zombie flick, a broad comedy, a clever satire, and a bizarrely touching “coming of age” story all at once. No, it’s not the sort of zombie movie that’ll have you hiding your eyes in fear, but if you’re a big fan of the undead sub-genre, you’ll probably find a lot to like in Andrew Currie’s “Fido.” It’s sort of like a 1950s melodrama got dropped into a blender along with Dawn of the Dead, Mad Magazine, and a particularly clever Saturday Night Live sketch. Say what you like, but “Fido” is far and away the finest zombie comedy to come from British Columbia. More

I don’t know who it was that said “OK, look. Anthony Hopkins is too old (and expensive) at this point, but damn this Hannibal Lecter series just oozes money from every pore. Let’s get that Harris guy to bang out another book, which we can release a month before the movie comes out. More