It turns out that the granddaddy of torture-porn and Slasher-poitation, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, isn’t as exploitive or graphic as its reputation would make you think. It’s actually just some good old fashioned psychological horror, much closer to the economically controlled thrills of Hitchcock than the splatter flicks of Herschell Gordon Lewis. The film is kinda-sorta based on the misdeeds of serial killer Ed Gain (also an inspiration behind the book Psycho), but perhaps more of a direct result of the graphic violence from the Vietnam War seen nightly on television news. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may have a set-up that now seems overly familiar, but where it goes was wholly original and how it gets there is utterly horrifying. Shot in a docudrama style, its ultra realistic feel makes it seem even more real; it’s like The Battle Of Algiers meets The Hills Have Eyes.

WARNING: Review contains spoilers.

Trick 'r Treat might just be the greatest Halloween horror film to date. Not only do most of the horror films that people choose to scare themselves with around the holiday not even circulate around the event, but those that do, such as the films that make up the Halloween franchise, fail to approach the mysticism of Halloween itself. Don't get me wrong, many of them are awesome movies, but they use Halloween as a crutch instead of integrating it into the plot.

Aside from its thematic elements, this movie also has some of the most amazing art direction, makeup, and old-school prosthetics that are unfortunately lost or digitized in more contemporary horror and fantasy films. I'd compare it to Pan’s Labyrinth in the sense that it really compliments the film without taking away from anything else, and yet, it’s the film’s strongest feature. It features an ensemble cast of many lesser-known actors, including Dylan Baker (the pedophile from Happiness), Brett Kelly (the curly-haired kid from Bad Santa), and Anna Paquin (Almost Famous, X-Men). It also stars a lot of really talented children. The ensemble cast gives you no one to focus on, which lets you delve into the story and get into the spirit of spookiness. Another great aspect to it is the fact that the majority of the characters are all annoying, or outright horrible people, who you in turn anticipate seeing slaughtered: child murderers, irresponsible young adults, and bad-mannered children.

Franchise films are a bittersweet realm. They stay fairly safe when they reach the prequels and sequels, but everything past that tends to get a little sloppy. The reasons are usually quite simple: either there were too many hands in the cookie jar in production, a bad team working on the film (director, casting, etc.) or, the plot just gets exhausted to the point of being tasteless and dull.

The Friday the 13^th franchise is perhaps one of the most successful overall, coming in second to A Nightmare on Elm St. Up until the fifth or sixth film, you can pretty much find something amusing within each story. When you think about it, there are several films you can make about an impenetrable boogeyman who attacks oversexed (or in the case of this film, undersexed) teenagers who camp on his turf.

David Cronenberg. Stephen King. Christopher Walken. You need no other excuse to check out this movie other than the fact that it’s the one and only time that those three names shared credit space at the opening of a film; and at a time when they were all creatively at the top of their game as director, writer and actor respectively. The Dead Zone is based on King’s successful novel of the same name, adapted for the screen by Jeffrey Boam (with a polish by David Cronenberg) and stars Christopher Walken at a time just before he became the "go-to" eccentric character actor in just about everything.

Walken plays Johnny Smith, a content school teacher who has a passion for his job, the admiration of his students and is engaged to the love of his life. But one fateful night, he’s involved in a terrible car accident that puts him in a coma. When he awakens, six years have passed, his limbs have suffered from atrophy, his job is gone and his fiance is now married to another man and a mother to a child that isn’t his. But he’s also awoken from his deep slumber with an unlikely gift; the gift of second sight. One mere touch and he’s able to not only see your past and present, but also see your future.

Let me cut right to the chase. Bereavement is a real-deal horror film in the sense that it depicts some of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen in a genre movie. But the nastiness is necessary and the payoff is earned in the delicate and capable hands of a skilled filmmaker/storyteller such as writer/director Stevan Mena. Yes, this film also acts as a prequel to Mena’s debut feature Malevolence, but it’s also a rare anomaly in the genre. It’s a film that strives to satisfy two different audiences; those that love the first film and want to learn the backstory that comes before the original. And then there are those who are simply walking into it blindly just wanting to see a new, original horror movie. In that regard, he succeeds at delivering what both audiences would want with Bereavement. The biggest difference between the two is that if you already know the previous feature, you kind of know where this story has to inevitably end in order to line-up with Malevolence; whereas newcomers will probably be shocked by the grim, dark descent that the story takes.