Every character, every scene, every setup for a scare drowns in an ocean of commonplace convention, watering down everything until any flavor other than ordinary washes away.

Whatever you thought of the first “Ju-On: The Curse,” you’re likely to feel the same about the second.  Mainly because they function as a singular entity.

Vaulting over initial uncertainty in the premise, “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” is not as disturbing to watch as one might fear.

Disassociating it from the juggernaut it would become and taking it at face value, the movie has a hard time holding up to fresh eyes over 15 years later.

The film features barely a hint of hilarity in spite of its premise, going instead for a somewhat stifling style of artily brooding bleakness. Think Jim Jarmusch, not Jim Carrey.

Something intriguing swirls in the center of this script, but whatever movie “Visions” intended to be is not the movie it is.

It is a sleepy crawl for the impatient, though settle into the scenery and “The Boy” rewards with impressive execution, even when it is being rote.

“Synchronicity” is essential viewing for indie filmmakers in need of inspiration or ideas on how to execute high concept with a low budget.

Bringing a movie to market in this manner is akin to having Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow present a Fabergé egg to the tsar.

Needing more animation in its action and more charisma in its cast, “Stung” is only slick enough to be a standard killer bug movie with too slight of a humorous edge.

Consider its cast of unknowns, the backyard look of (being) shot on a consumer camera, and a poorly Photoshopped poster, and it is crystal clear that “Lake Eerie” is not a professional-grade feature.

Certainly not the best, definitely not the worst, “Ghoul” is an above average first-person fright film.

Whether establishing atmosphere or a character, “The Veil” knows only one way to communicate any piece of information. That way is always overt, repetitive, uninteresting, or all three at once.

The creativity of “Jeruzalem” makes the movie a light at the end of the "found footage" tunnel, though the full film is not a complete Steve McQueen escape from the darkness.

“Bury” is a cautionary tale for independent filmmakers on how to create a “found footage” fiasco that is top to bottom trash.

There is a fair deal of frightening fun to be found in the nearly nonstop onslaught of freeze ray-firing aliens, fanged Venus flytraps, and levitating demon dogs.

Caught up in keeping its style unadventurous, “Howl” nevertheless fills the function of a standard werewolf thriller, provided no mind is paid to recycled predictability.

“All Hallows’ Eve 2” is a collection of disparate shorts having nothing to do with a common theme, or even with each other, dating as far back as 2004.

To watch “#Horror” is to have the passive experience of seeing awful people regard each other cruelly, with affluent boredom as an explanation for bad behavior.

It is the kind of film made to satisfy a spot in a schedule and fill a production order for something “ok” to be filler on a SyFy Saturday night.