“Big Driver” can’t help but be snipped somewhat when presented in a made-for-cable format that shortchanges supporting roles and relies on TV tropes to ensure it reads as a Lifetime movie.

Instead of looking for heat from the first match strike and a fiery flame, those who let the wick wither and light the room with subtle atmosphere will find their patience rewarded.

Gomez-Rejon and Aguirre-Sacasa made a movie that is part sequel, part remake, and part meta-fiction, yet so vague about defining its combined DNA that it is undeniably “The Town That Dreaded Sundown.”

“The Town That Dreaded Sundown” is what “Zodiac” would have been like if instead of David Fincher, it was directed by the man who made “The Legend of Boggy Creek.”

“Hangar 10” is the embodiment of everything that gives “found footage” its popularly unfavorable reputation ... It's a start to finish snore.

Director Adam Robitel and co-writer Gavin Heffernan douse their diving board in a quality cast, an imaginative story, and high caliber creeps to concoct an original take on both tropes.

This is what a 1960s satanic thriller looks like when painted with a fresh coat of 21st-century cinematic sensibilities.

The horror is so hollow that “Ouija” never does anything more than sleepwalk through the motions of being a mediocre movie.

“Jessabelle” is a good old-fashioned alone-in-the-dark ghost story highlighted by talented performers, rich cinematography, and a screenplay built on clever surprises and tautly delivered chills.

This is how creative filmmakers mold meh material into a movie that audiences will talk about after, regardless of how they may have felt about the film itself.

You name it, “Hollows Grove” has it.  That is, as long as you don’t name anything like interesting backstory, compelling characters, or original ideas.

25 years from now, “The Butchers” might well fit as the type of midnight movie where audiences marvel, “can you believe people actually made movies like this back in 2014?”

While “The Killer Shrews” bears enough snicker-worthy moments to have earned itself a lampoon on MST3K, the truth is that it’s not that bad, not particularly good, just somewhere in between.

Perhaps taking inspiration from their film’s antagonists, it’s no wonder why the filmmakers rang a doorbell and walked away whistling, hoping no one would notice who was responsible.

“Halloween 4” stands as a serviceable sequel, although it is closer to being a formulaic “Friday the 13th” slasher than a tense “Halloween” suspense thriller.

Good intentions and competent execution go just so far, only to be unmet in the middle by a concept that cannot be recreated onscreen as effectively as one might suppose.

Through the lens of nostalgia, “Halloween II” as a movie surprisingly does not stand out as a bad entry in the series, especially when viewing the entire “Halloween” canon as a whole.

With a slipshod approach to technical execution and corner-cutting screenwriting to splice together a story, “Fear Clinic” just can’t pull it itself together.

Whatever it is trying to say about female empowerment is not effectively communicated through vibrantly colored slow-motion sequences set to classical music.

Even if it stood alone in the ever-expanding subgenre of home invasion horror, “White Settlers” is too slow and too narrowly focused in scope to earn a recommendation.