THE AWAKENING (2011) opens with a séance and we all know that's a good thing. Shortly we're on some 1920's era, cross country train trip and it's clear we're being taken to one of my favorite places on Earth…uptight lady who may be bonkers in an ominous mansion with super creepy kids-land! (See THE INNOCENTS, THE OTHERS, THE ORPHANAGE, HOUSE OF VOICES, FRAGILE, et al.) Let me be upfront and say this type of movie gets a ton of leeway with me. I just want to spend as much time inside it as possible and I'm fully prepared to tolerate it going through whatever well-worn motions it needs to in order to do so. Maybe these digs are nothing new but what's a subgenre for anyway, unless to sign a secret agreement to deliver essentially what you expect? Yes, there are few surprises (I may not have known exactly the precise inevitable twist but I sure knew the ballpark) yet honestly, if it went on forever I wouldn't have minded much as it satisfyingly establishes a complete and believable arena for the supernatural to roam.

Written by STEPHEN VOLK, the brains behind the legendary GHOSTWATCH, THE AWAKENING most fully earns it's place at the ghost table by delivering some intriguingly robust characters in hard-nosed proto-Ghostbuster Florence Cathcart (REBECCA HALL) and her injured and enigmatic confidant/love interest Robert Malloy (DOMINIC WEST). If these two kooky kids had the mind to jump out of the movie and start an X-FILES type show, I would gladly pull up a chair each week. It's certainly a shame that director NICK MURPHY didn't better resist the urge to gild the lily with uninvited splashes of unnecessary CGI, but those few incidents weren't so obtrusive as to tear the whole playhouse down. I'll probably revisit and investigate this movie's familiar yet absorbing halls more thoroughly in the future. For now, this is a great Netflix find for anyone who enjoys a more classic and refined approach to scares; it takes full advantage of its setting and what it lacks in innovation, it makes up for with the company you get to keep.

THE EVIL DEAD (2013) is exceptionally good, particularly for a remake, but I can't say it completely blew my socks off. That's O.K., maybe in the future it will. For now I'm satisfied, even if my socks aren't. I certainly recommend checking it out while it's in theaters; it's a big, gorgeous, blood-red hell painting that deserves to be seen on the largest canvas possible but I'd take those "most terrifying movie ever" blurbs with a grain of salt. I say that as someone who is a light touch when it comes to being unnerved by possession flicks. Obviously a great effort was made to strike a more serious and grounded tone and it absolutely works but the stripping away of anything campy or freaky for me, lessens my sense of a more unrestrained truly evil, mocking presence. Both figuratively and literally, this movie sings a haunting lullaby that is precise and sharply assembled, yet I can't say this tune is as rabidly fierce as the simple, absurd maddening chant of "We're going to get you." In many ways — finer acting (with the exception of lightening in corduroys CAMPBELL), resplendent cinematography, and fuller script — this reworking is superior to the film it's based on and yet it suffers for being too straight-faced and cautious about fully dipping its paw in the rampant insanity jar. Yep, it's bloody as hell but I can't say physical gore can really hold a candle to the threat of crazed, unbridled delirium.

Sorry, I'm looking at this gift horse straight in the mouth and maybe I should be careful about comparing this spring chicken with a movie that has lived in my bones for decades. If nothing else, director FEDE ALVERAZ branded more than a few fresh, potent images into my brain. There's a bit involving a conversation through a plastic bag that is touching, gloriously bizarre and exhilaratingly unique and there's a final clash battle image between two figures that I wouldn't mind having as a mural on my wall. I love the look of this movie. It's like some kind of muddy, rusty religious relic someone dug up out of a grave. If I could kidnap ALVERAZ at gunpoint and lead him into a time machine in order to remake all the other remakes that sucked, I would.

And yet I wanted more. I wanted to be taken over the top. I was right there on the edge waiting for him to push me. There's a well done, late in the game build up to the resurrection of what we can only imagine is a sort of ultimate demon and then when it arises we get….a pretty girl with muddy hair. She's expertly utilized for the most part, we catch her climbing out of a shed and it's [REC]-level yikes but God, I wanted to slap a death skull mask of some sort on her! Sure, that might have gone against the film's level-headed, non-cartoony approach but I was primed at that point to jump to the next plane and take on some wilder beasts. Oh well, maybe next time. As is, this an accomplished sturdy nightmare, I just wish I could push it off the cold turkey wagon, dose it with hallucinogens and free it to cackle like a truly impious fiend.