(B+) I was skeptical, but "The Queen" proved worth the watch. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a well put together, interesting and often surprisingly funny movie.

(B- for "Oblong", C+ for "Scream...") "The Oblong Box" is yet another pseudo-Poe adaptation featuring Vincent Price. It's a bit grittier than some of the earlier ones, but it's much in the same vein. Enjoyable enough, if far from special. "Scream and Scream Again" is more flawed, but it's plot is just so damn weird that I think it's worth one watch.

(B) Incredibly cheap and schlocky even for this kinda thing, but it has true low-budget charm and, of all things, heart. You don't get much of that in cheapie horror films.

(C+) They've all been slow thus far, but this Zatoichi film is just stuck in neutral forever. It still has a good climax, and Zatoichi is still a cool character, but it definitely drags at times.

(B-) This is just another 'Ring' clone, but a superior, genuinely scary one. . .for the first hour. After that point it slowly falls apart, with some silly scenes and a severe case of over-ghosting. These movies work better when you don't see the ghost much. When you do see her, you realize she's just some Asian chick in not particularly good makeup. Too bad, it coulda been excellent.

(A-) A sad, tragic film about an unsuccessful medium's attempt to gain publicity by kidnapping a wealthy couple's child and then gaining publicity by helping with the investigation. A very dark, adult movie with terrific lead performances. Should be better remembered than it is.

(B) A solid, interesting and relatively intelligent haunted house film, though the final revelation is a bit. . .bizarre.

(B) An Asian Supernatural thriller from the past decade that isn't a 'Ring' knockoff. Yes, they do exist, apparently. Well-made and involving mystery-thriller-drama, though it could stand to be trimmed a bit, especially the opening.

(B-) The reincarnated fetus of some Indian mystic grows out of a chicks neck. This sounds like a classic camp horror premise, and it is, though it's hampered by a painfully talkly first hour. After that, though, it delivers on the goofiness like you wouldn't believe. Climax must be seen to be believed.

(B-) As you would anticipate for Malick's follow up to "The Thin Red Line", this is a very beautiful and mind-bogglingly pretentious film. It's a long watch, no doubt, but it has enough points of interest to be worth it.

(B) Hitchcock's first really big film, or so I'm told. Like any film from 1935, it's severely dated in a lot of ways, but it holds up better than most, for sure. Not nearly as good as some of his later thrillers, but it points towards them, and is a brisk, entertaining watch. It's a tad on the implausible side, even as such films go, but I can excuse it.

(B) This one's kinda tough to rate, cause it's an anthology and the first two are pretty vanilla apart from Black's goofily amusing performances. The "Prey/Amelia" segment, however, is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. It has quite possibly the finest attack puppet in the history of film.

(B-) An incredibly low-key horror film, sorta thing you don't see much today. Frankly, it's a little too flat, even for me, but it has enough nasty ideas and images to maintain interest. The major twist is very obvious now, though it may have been more suprising 35 years ago. Kinda seems like I should like this one more than I did, I'll have to watch it again someday.

(B-) Not as much fun as the first one, but it's still entertaining enough.

(C for both) These are both well mounted, but get no help from the scripts. "Murders..." script is just a repetition muddle, whereas "Cry..." suffers from its opportunism and the decision to make the witchhunters cruel hypocrites while the witches are real and evil, a dramatically idiotic choice. Still, the films have some appealing performances, from Dwyer and Price and Robbards.