It used to be that I was a big fan of vampire movies. I think the first one that I ever saw cast George Hamilton in Love at First Bite, which made no sense. The man who insured his tan was a vampire? It was more a comedy than a horror film. It probably isn’t relevant, except perhaps the makers of this film were similarly influenced, and that is why they named their film what they did (George Hamilton, The Hamiltons, I don’t know).

Regardless, I’m starting to think that whenever I see a film dubbed “the thinking person’s horror film”, I should run the other way. Let’s face it – horror fans don’t want to think. I really don’t consider myself a fan of blood and gore, but I also don’t want a complete snore-fest either, and that’s really what I found here, along with most of the other movies from the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest.

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Overall, the movies of the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest weren’t that great, but this one wasn’t bad. Now I realize that the movies weren’t big-budget films, but that’s okay. Movies don’t have to cost a lot of money to be good. To say it another way, just because they cost a lot of money doesn’t mean that they will be any good. They might be horrible.

In this case, we see a few friends at a funeral, and after, they decide to drown their sorrows and make what – by most estimations – would probably be a bad decision. They dance on some graves to celebrate the fact that they are alive. Why would they do this? Because they were told to do so. Not directly, mind you, but because while they were mourning the death of their friend, they found an envelope at the grave, and upon opening it, they were told to “dance upon graves and celebrate life”. A poem of sorts. So they did. It wasn’t written to them – someone had just left it, they read it, and that’s what they did.

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In 1978, George A. Romero released Dawn of the Dead as a follow-up to his 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead (the forerunner of all modern zombie films).  While Romero gets a writing credit for this movie based on his original 1978 screenplay, and there are definitely some similarities here, it’s not the same movie.

Directed by Zack Snyder, and still taking place in a shopping mall as the zombies start to make their presence felt throughout the world, there is a definite shift over thirty years.  Where the first film left you to do a bit more interpreting, and was a bit more on the psychological side, this one is a bit more a sign of the times, and gives you a lot more action to work with while you watch the affect of being cooped up as the world crumbles.

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I’m going to take a bit of a departure on this one, and say that if you’re looking for a plot, go elsewhere, because there isn’t much.  Deep in Slovakia (actually, it might be just inside Slovakia, we never really know), a group of ultra-rich people do what ultra-rich people do – they get together and create for themselves what they can’t find anywhere else: A warehouse where they can kidnap and ultimately maim and murder wandering teens who would not be missed if they go missing.

Did you follow me?  I hope so, because it isn’t really much to work with, and it really goes downhill from there.

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Penny Deerborn (Rachel Miner) doesn’t like cars. I mean she really doesn’t like cars. Through a series of flashbacks in the movies, we find that she was in a horrible wreck when she was younger that killed both of her parents (at least, they appear to be her parents). So her psychiatrist, Orianna Volkes (Mimi Rogers) is helping her through the process of conquering her fears.

Orianna has written at least one book on the subject (we see it several times as events of the night unfold), and she is helping young Penny to come full circle. To conquer her fears by confronting them. So they are taking a ride into the mountains. It appears that the mountains might be the place where the wreck happened, but that may or may not be important. What is important is that Penny simply doesn’t like being in cars. She gets sick just riding along with the door shut.

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Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg) is your typical high school athlete, who is out trying to impress his girlfriend, Alison (Camille Cooper). But for some reason he can’t seem to keep things straight whenever she’s around, and one day he slams into the goal post, and it looks like he gives himself a concussion. That’s not the worst part, though, because that night he has a nightmare where he sees his brother, sister and mother killed by a serial killer who is stalking the city.

When he tries to convince his father (the police chief) about what he saw, his dad doesn’t want to hear about it. But when his family turns up dead, and he somehow knows the details, suddenly they are very interested – but not in a casual sense. They want to know just how he came to know what he does. That’s when things get a little more interesting. Unfortunately, Jonathan isn’t interested in just telling them. He wants to help catch this guy.

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The follow-up to the 2005 Saw II (itself a sequel to 2004’s Saw) returns to a format that is a bit more like the original than the initial sequel.

In the first go-round, we were left a bit baffled, trying to figure out just what was going on. In the end, we were still left wondering, but in a good way. In the first sequel, it was mostly a horror-fest. This time, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) and his apprentice Amanda (Shawnee Smith) return to their testing ways, which is a whole lot more fun to watch.

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There aren’t too many movies that I like that start at the end. This one isn’t likely to make me a convert. It starts with a man (Bill Pullman) jumping to his death from a hotel balcony. At least, I think it was a hotel. It may have been an apartment. I really couldn’t tell.

And that was the second part of the problem. I was completely and utterly lost all the way through this movie. I followed the plot well enough, but I spent much of the time trying to figure out what was happening around the plot. That’s no fun.

What I can tell you is that Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is some sort of exchange student. At least, she is an American. Suddenly, due to the death of a nurse or housekeeper or something, an opening becomes available for her, and so she jumps at the chance. But the house where she will be working is possessed by the spirit or someone who was killed. Apparently an ancient proverb says that someone killed with great emotion will remain there, and that’s what happened.

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One of the more unlikely war heroes you are ever likely to meet is Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce). This is because Captain Boyd is only a war hero because he is a coward. When he went to battle, he was so scared he played dead, and was carried into a pile of bodies. Later, he managed to pull himself out from the pile of bodies and found himself behind enemy lines, which allowed him to capture the enemy fort. Instant war hero.

Alas, the General knows that something is amiss, and he doesn’t like it, so he sends the intrepid Captain Boyd to Fort Spencer in California, and because it is the middle of the winter, this fort nestled high in the Sierras isn’t likely to see much action at all. It’s the perfect place to get rid of him. But that’s not likely to happen to someone like Captain Boyd.

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This movie is widely credited as being the film that brought some fun back to the horror, Scream is easily one of the more enjoyable romps you can enjoy if you’re looking for something in the genre.

Starting with the mysterious death of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) as she is home alone one night and receives a strange phone call, right up through the end, horror master Wes Craven will keep you guessing throughout.

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