Ghost Ship
Director Steve (Thirteen Ghosts) Beck is back with another ghost story. After a party on an exclusive Italian cruise ship is "cut" short and the ship disappears, a stranger lures a salvage crew (lead by Gabrial Byrne and Julianna Margulies) to search for the missing ocean liner in hopes of finding riches. But the crew finds more than the expected on this "ghost ship." Besides a cache of gold bars, the salvagers learn from the ghost of a child (Emily Browning) that no one leaves this vessel alive. With scenes reminiscent of 1980's "The Shining" and some interesting special effects only possible with computers, Ghost Ship has its moments. While not as intense as The Ring, Ghost Ship offers a solid horror tale with enough twists to make it different from similar ghost ship tales like Virus (1999), a personal favorite.

Ghosts of Mars
John Carpenter takes his "Pandora's Box" plot (The Thing, Prince of Darkness, The Fog) to Mars. Riddled with clichéd dialogue and a plot that mixes cowboys and Indians with Mad Max, this one might please Carpenter fans as a rental. At least they can have fun yelling out comments.

Ginger Snaps
Ginger Snaps (on video) is a cult favorite-in-the-making. Sexy teenage girls, werewolves, death and the macabre. What's not to like? But what really makes this film work is the way it cleverly ties the werewolf plot to the terrifying mutations of adolescence, taking shots at high school and teenagers by refreshingly striking all the right notes. And don't be fooled when this film starts hysterically funny because it turns into top-notch horror with top-of-the-line special effects. Now I know why they call it "that time of the month."

Go
Round and Round you'll Go. Where it stops, you won't know. A pleasant surprise. Great set ups and pay offs! Just as good the second time.

Godzilla: 2000
This CGI enhanced Godzilla couldn't look better. Watching him stomp buildings made me giddy. Godzilla lives again!

The Golden Compass
The relatively new director Chris Weitz wrote the screenplay with Philip Pullman from Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy about a parallel universe where human souls take the form of animals called daemons. However, things take a turn when young orphan Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) discovers a plot to poison her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). Soon thereafter, she is given the last of the Alethimeters (The Golden Compass), a devise that tells the truth and may expose the sinister plans of a covert organization, led by Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman), bent on controlling the universe. The filmmakers capture the fantasy realm well with sweeping landscape panoramas; detailed, colorful turn-of-the-century cities; and flying and ocean-going vessels. Unfortunately, done well isn’t always enough these days because we’ve seen it all before. That leaves the plot. Trying to capture three books in less than two hours is a difficult task. Characters mention things like “dust,” which is never quite explained in the film and the entire plot itself does meander a bit before finally settling down. Sometime it appears that characters stumble onto story lines. And don’t ask me how the compass actually works. Then the film ends in the middle of things setting itself up for a sequel, but leaving many in the audience feeling disappointed at the abrupt conclusion. There is plenty of star power: Ian McKellen, Sam Elliot, Christopher Lee, Kathy Bates, Derek Jacobi, all who do fine jobs as live actors or voices. Even Nicole Kidman is cold and cunning, but she never really touches us enough to hate her for torturing children. The CGI animals do steal the show, especially the armored polar bears doing battle with humans or each other. The Golden Compass is better than some and worse than others. My 10 year old enjoyed it, saying he would read the books after seeing the film. And if a film gets kids to read the books, it can’t be all bad.

Gothica
With more acting experience than director's credits, Mathieu Kassovitz directs this tormented ghost tale penned by Sebastian Gutierrez (Mermaid Chronicles, 2001). In this tale, psychiatrist Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) begins her day interviewing mental patient, Chloe Sava (Penelope Cruz), talking treatment with her doctor husband (Charles Dutton), and flirting with her colleague, Peter Graham (Robert Downey, Jr.) before heading home in the rain to be run off the road by a bloody young woman. In the next scene, she's behind bars at her own mental institution, charged with the axe murder of her husband and remembering nothing. As the mystery unwinds, the story adds a tormented ghost, a case of possession, and some dirty hidden secrets. Unfortunately, we've seen it before: the tormented ghost using a living person to free it from its torment by exposing a killer; and we've seen it done better. Not that this film is bad. Kassovitz directs some nice ghost scenes and the expected "scare on the turnaround," but this film never takes off. I'm also not sure if I liked so many claustrophobic scenes inside the catacombed, cold steel hallways of the mental institution. And most scenes were inside the institution. It's not until the third act that we finally go outside. As far as characters, Penelope Cruz wasn't needed, but Robert Downey, Jr. did keep me guessing about his involvement. I did become somewhat curious about where the mystery was leading, but upon arrival I felt as though I'd seen it before. With no real surprises this one is better saved for a rental.

The Gravedancers
The Gravedancers, one of eight films in the "Eight Films to Die for Horror Fest," is about three friends (Harris, played by Prison Break's Dominic Purcell; Kira, played by Van Helsing's Josie Maran; and Sid, played by Marcus Thomas) who decide to remember their recently deceased friend by partying at his gravesite. After drinking themselves silly, Sid finds what he believes to be a sympathy card on the gravestone and reads it while they dance on various graves. It turns out that the poem was actually an evil spell that incurs the wrath of the spirits of the dead who proceed to follow them home. Sid is followed by the ghost of an adolescent pyromaniac who killed his family and himself, Josie is followed home by the ghost of a deceased sexual sadist, and Harris is followed home (to his wife, Allison, played by Clare Kramer—Buffy's Glory) by the angry spirit of a former piano teacher who killed her lover and her lover's wife with an axe. Although a bit slow starting, once the vengeful spirits make their appearance, things get moving quickly. A better-than-average budget, some top-notch special effects, the eerie desiccated appearances of each spirit (one of the reasons I picked this one out of the eight offerings,) a few tongue-in-cheek laughs, and some jump-out-of-your-seat scares makes this a film for horror fans to catch. Since the "Horror Fest" was limited to a few select theaters, look for this on DVD within the coming year if you don't catch it on the big screen.

Grindhouse
Planet Terror, the first feature in Grindhouse's double-feature presentation, is a mutant zombie blood fest written, directed, edited, scored, and photographed by Robert Rodriguez (1996's Dusk to Dawn. 2005's Sin City, and 1995's Desperado to name a few.) Planet Terror is yet another story about hordes of flesh eating mutants unleashed on society via a botched experiment. This time its in Texas where Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) leads a rag-tag group of survivors (Rose McGowan, Naveen Andrews, Michael Biehn, Stacy Ferguson and more) in a running battle with the zombies and a group of rogue militiamen (Bruce Willis, Quentin Tarantino.) This is a fast-paced action oriented blood bath where every bullet entering a zombie ends in a watermelon-like explosion with heads split open and limbs sent flying. And that's about the extent of it. While the action was non-stop, I did find myself getting a bit exhausted toward the end. Of course, the high pace is sprinkled with gross outs, intentional one-liners and humorous (sometimes dark) scenes, such as when Stacy Ferguson's character gives her prepubescent son a gun to protect himself as she is about to leave their car. She warns him, "Don't point the gun at yourself or you'll shoot your face off." Of course, as soon as she steps from the car we hear the pop and see the flesh. I found this an interesting choice from the man who gave us Spy Kids, but remember this is rated "R" for a reason. You might also appreciate the over-the-top scenes where Rose McGowan uses the machine gun/grenade launcher as a prosthetic leg after hers is ripped off by the zombies. So while the carnage and tongue and cheek humor sustained Planet Terror for a while, it left me a bit exhausted and wondering if I would be able to sit still for the next 90 minutes of the second feature, Death Proof. Now that's where the real surprise came for me.

Death Proof, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino (1992's Reservoir Dogs, 1994's Pulp Fiction, 1997's Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill 1 and 2) is about Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), an ex-stuntman who drives around in a reinforced "death proof" stunt car, stalking women. One, Shanna (Jordan Ladd), he gets into his car so he can drive wildly, stopping short and sending her smashing into the front window, while others (Venessa Ferlito, Sydney Tarmiia Potier and friends) he prefers to play chicken with on lone stretches of highway. Things seem to be always going Stuntman Mike's way until he tangles with a carload of female stuntwomen (Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Traci Thorns, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The one thing that caught my attention immediately was that Death Proof had tons of dialogue before the action actually gets rolling. Here was Quentin Tarantino writing dialogue for women with the same edge displayed in such famous films as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. Most of it was quite riveting and believable with his sharp edged wit and machine gun timing. The car crashes were extremely graphic and one in particular was shown at least three times over in slow motion so we wouldn't miss one horrific detail. The 90 minutes of Death Proof flew by for me as I came away very surprised and satisfied at what I had just seen. For me, this was, by far, the better of the two.

One last thing I need to mention is that Grindhouse is packaged like it came out of a 1970s film vault in style and soundtrack. Especially entertaining were the fake movie trailers, Machete, directed by Robert Rodriguez about a double-crossed Mexican assassin, Thanksgiving, directed by Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) about a holiday slasher, Don't, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) about a haunted house, and Werewolf Women of the S.S., directed by Rob Zombie (House of 1000 Corpses and The Devils Rejects) about Nazi plans to create a race of super-werewolf women soldiers. All seemed so entertaining, I actually wished they would really make them.

The Grudge
Sam Raimi takes on the role of producer to allow director Takashi Shimizu to re-imagine his own Japanese horror film Ju-on, this time for American audiences. In The Grudge, Karen (Buffy's Sarah Michelle Gellar) has relocated to Japan with her student-architect boyfriend, Doug (Jason Behr), and become a caretaker for Emma Williams (Grace Zabriskie), a lethargic American alzheimer patient, after the original caretaker (Yoko Maki) mysteriously disappears. But after Karen discovers a creepy little boy locked in the closet and Detective Nakagawa (Ryo Ishibashi) finds the bodies of Emma's son and daughter-in-law (William Mapother and Clea Duvall) in the attic, it becomes apparent that the house is haunted. With the ghosts stirred to a frenzy, Karen, Detective Makagawa, and Emma's surviving daughter, Susan (KaDee Strickland), quickly discover that the ghost's reach extends beyond the walls of the house. Takashi Shimizu has created a well-crafted horror film by using flashbacks (one involving a story with Bill Pullman), music, lighting, a tight story and great special-effects to keep us fixated from the opening scene to the closing credits. He scares us by telling us things the characters don't know so we think "don't open that door" and by not telling us enough so we are forced to walk down that dark hallway with the characters to uncover creepy things hiding in the shadows. He made me jump out of my seat more than once. There are a few similarities with 2002's The Ring, but this film goes further so put it on your "must see" list. The Grudge is why horror fans go to the movies.

The Grudge 2
Takashi Shimizu continues bringing his 2000 Japanese language version Ju-on to English-speaking audiences with The Grudge 2. I say "continues" because if you saw his original, Ju-on, you'll immediately recognize the story of the three high-school girls visiting the grudge house; although in this English version, the high school girls get a main plot string, while in Ju-on they were only one of many segments of a much more powerful ghost story. However, the main plot in The Grudge 2 actually involves Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) Davis' sister, Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) going to Tokyo to bring back her hospitalized sister, accused of killing her boyfriend from the first film. And that's the first problem with the film—the two plots didn't compliment or support each other much. In fact, when the high-school girl plot jumps to Chicago, USA, I was unaware as to what was going on, thinking I had missed something, especially when another group of characters, this time a family, becomes possessed, seemingly for no reason. Nothing in The Grudge 2 surpasses or matches the creepiness and surprise of the 2004 version, except for one scene in a photographer's darkroom that I found innovative. The rest is a rehash at best, often leaving me confused and dissatisfied. I actually heard someone coming out of the theater say, "I hope they don't make a Grudge 3," but hold on, I just read that there is a Grudge 3 planned for a 2007 release. If you've never seen the original Ju-on, I recommend you give that a look. I watched it alone one night/morning at 3 a.m. (the real witching hour) and it had me looking over my shoulder.