All of which makes The Grudge 2 an insidious mixed bag of thrills and chills, and I’m just not sure the good elements outweigh the bad ones near enough to make watching it in a theatre worthwhile.

The Descent is a freefall into fear not to be missed.

House of Wax is cruelly juvenile in ways that worked for me, and as far as Dark Castle’s current run of bloody horror remakes are concerned, this might just be their best one yet.

The new DC Comics adaptation of Constantine from Warner Bros. is probably the best $80-million anti-smoking commercial ever made.

The Grudge works, and I’ve got the sweaty palms to prove it.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is pretty awful, and if this ends up being game over for the budding franchise I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Not altogether shocking, Alien vs. Predator is an unreviewable motion picture.

Ultimately, if The Return of the King isn’t quite the thrilling conclusion we were all hoping for, it is still very much a rousingly successful culmination to what may be the most satisfying cinematic trilogy of all time.

Despite a winning moment here and a wonderful one there, The Haunted Mansion has more in common with The Country Bears than it does Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and that’s too bad.