Eastern Promises is a film that stars an American playing a Russian thug, a Frenchman playing a Russian Enforcer and an Australian playing a British midwife. This is something that I feel only David Cronenberg could pull off.

In recent years, Cronenberg has gone away from his far out sexual fantasies and strange characters involving very strange situations to something a little more straight forward. To say that doesn’t mean that that is a bad thing. With this new, more conventional approach to storytelling, Cronenberg and his cast shine in this tale of crime, betrayal and search for the truth.

After assisting in the birth of a baby born to a 14 year old Ukrainian prostitute, a British Midwife (Watts) discovers a diary belonging to the girl that could unlock dangerous secrets that could potentially cause great harm not only to herself but to those around her.

Broken down into roughly five stories, The Dead Girl is a film that intersects the lives of complete strangers in relation to the grisly murder of a young prostitute.

Toni Collette plays the unfortunate woman who has the displeasure of discovering a body on a hillside at an anonymous location. Her life is thrown into disarray as the local media and police swarm her once isolated life. As the caretaker of her extremely overbearing mother (creepily played by Piper Laurie), Collette realizes that with her new-found attention, she can move on and develop relationships with others, thus leading her into a strange encounter with a bag boy from the supermarket.

Moving on to our second story, we meet a student who’s overcome with sadness due to the disappearance of her sister some fifteen years ago. Working part-time as the assistant to a coroner, the body of the dead girl is revealed to her, at which point she believes she has found her long lost sister. But is it really her sister?

At first look, a film entitled You Are Alone, may not be at the top of your list of must sees unless, perhaps, you are alone. However, one must never judge the straight to DVD video by its title.

You Are Alone centers on two primary characters. Well, actually three. There is Daphne. She’s been accepted into Harvard, she’s beautiful and she’s alone. Then there is Britney. She’s seen things that most people won’t see in their lifetime. And then there is Buddy, a sad sack whose wife has left him, whose dog has recently died and his empty dark encapsulation that he calls home.

The main difference between Daphne and Britney is pretty obvious. On one hand we have a very bright, sexy and sharp young woman on the brink of something great. On the other hand we have a young prostitute who claims that she is the one always in control. The biggest similarity is that Daphne and Britney is the same person.

Mike White has a knack for making you feel uncomfortable. After all, he did pen Chuck and Buck as well as several episodes of Freaks and Geeks (both bodies of work are highly underrated). His characters can be so awkward that I sometimes need to look away.

Shannon plays a lonely executive assistant whose life spins out of control due to the untimely death of her dog, Pencil. Pencil was her life and now she has no life. That is until a kind veterinarian (Sarsgaard) offers Shannon a new dog to adopt. Not only does she fall in love with the dog but with the vet as well.

Things get more and more, dare I say, creepy as she changes almost every aspect of her life to gain more commonalities with her fellow dog lover. Everything from becoming vegan (not because it’s a dietary choice) to sponsoring abused farm animals.

From the deranged mind that brought you Bad Lieutenant, Ms. 45 and King of New York comes a horror tale involving drug addicts, graduate students and vampires.

Not particularly scary or even bulging with production value, the film is still great fun for any fan of the vampire sub genre.

The story plays out as a cautionary yarn warning the audience of the perils of drug abuse(?). A University of New York (not N.Y.U.) graduate student (Lily Taylor) falls prey to a sexy blood sucker (Annabella Sciora) on the dark streets of Manhattan. The experience leaves Taylor in the depths of a horrible addiction; an addiction to human blood.

Unlike many films that portray modern vampirism, St. John’s script adds a bit of a twist in that he uses an unconventional means of blood consumption.

Shot on grainy 35mm black and white, Ferrara’s New York is at once gritty and beautiful. The contrast of dark to light serves the story well.