Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012)

Truly one of the horror movie franchises of all-time, the "Wrong Turn" series began with a proficient backwoods slasher flick and has survived creative bankruptcy on its way to becoming seven films strong. This fifth entry is one of the better ones, although that's not saying much. And much of the reason it's tolerable is because of a scenery-chewing Doug Bradley, who enters the series as a fugitive serial killer in command of inbred hillbilly cannibals Three Finger and company and becomes the primary antagonist of the movie when his arrest triggers a bloody rescue mission. Also roped into this saga is a group of prototypical slasher teens who are really just there to be annoying and die horribly. Oh, and there's a dumbass lady sheriff (Camilla Afwedson) whose insistence that Bradley's character stays behind bars all night doesn't really help anyone.

The kills here are what "Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines" is all about and on that front it only almost delivers. People are gutted, literally mowed over, set ablaze and even battered with sledgehammers, but a lot of it is so poorly lit that gorehounds probably won't leave happy. The plot, meanwhile, is equally predictable and silly -- just an excuse to get the blood and viscera spilling. This is probably better than the two sequels immediately preceding it and definitely more tolerable than the recent reboot, but it's a bad movie all the same.

Cobweb (2023)

Picture a very dark take on the "The Thing and I" segment from The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror VII", mix in a sinister mom (Lizzy Caplan) and dad (Antony Starr), and tack on a final act that has the style and energy of your average supernatural short film. What you now have is "Cobweb", director Samuel Bodin's engaging but utterly unremarkable horror movie revolving around a young boy (Woody Norman), the voice he hears in his home's walls, and the mystery of his parents' potentially murderous past. There are very few scares to be had here and there's a sense of been-there-done-that to most of what the movie serves up, but it's hard to deny the quality of the movie's angular shots and use of shadows and dark spaces -- even if it's in the service of a story that's as fresh as your average corpse. Also hard to deny: Cleopatra Coleman's presence as substitute teacher Miss Devine, who resolves to come to her student Peter's aid when suspicions rise that things are unravelling at home. I need to see more horror movies with her in them, please. I also wouldn't mind seeing what else Samuel Bodin can do when given more original material.

Evil Dead (2013)

A benchmark against which all other modern horror franchise revivals ought to be judged, Fede Alvarez's "Evil Dead" is exactly the kind of blood-soaked, action-packed freakfest that a 21st century "Evil Dead" movie ought to be. Though it may be lacking Ash Williams, the movie provides a similarly badass protagonist in the shape of Mia Allen (Jane Levy), whose journey from basket case addict to chainsaw-wielding queen over the course of the movie's runtime is one of the best final girl transformations in recent memory. Her unfortunate friends, who have brought Mia to a remote cabin to go cold turkey and discover and read the Necronomicon in its burned-out basement after a demon-roasting mob fail to do an adequate cleanup job after the movie's great opening sequence, may not be quite on Mia's level as fully fleshed-out characters, but the actors do a great job and it's a perverted delight to watch them get put through the wringer after unleashing demonic forces upon themselves (well, Eric does anyway). This is a movie I've watched a whole bunch of times and never get tired of. Like 2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", it continues to age like a fine wine.