Richard Harrington

Craven also wrote the script here, based on a news story about California parents who kept their children locked in the basement for many years. That's scary -- and so is how far Craven has fallen.

In Born in East L.A., Marin plays it mostly for cheap laughs and only an occasional touch of pathos. In other words, he's taken the easy way out. And the script is so sketchy, the scenes so disconnected and the ideas so vacuous (even for Marin) that Born in East L.A. is in desperate need of a center it never finds in its 75 unfocused minutes. The film is a series of skits, blackouts and punchlines, but finished it's not.

Romero and his original partners apparently made no money from the original, and Romero admitted to the Wall Street Journal that the reasons for remaking the film were "purely financial." It shows...This Night of the Living Dead is resurrected, but it's never brought to life.

Though creepy Jeffrey Combs and beach boy Bruce Abbott return as West and Cain, producer Brian Yusna has replaced Stuart Gordon in the director's chair, without bringing new life to the affair. Even the jokes in the Woody Keith/Rick Fry screenplay seem refried.

"5" has none of the pizazz of "1" and "3" and is only marginally better than "2" and "4," the worst of the "Elms."

It's fists and feet that do the talking in Under Siege 2 and they prove eloquent enough.

Between the gang's patois and Seagal's soft speaking, Marked for Death almost begs for subtitles; the breaking of bones, however, comes through loud and clear.

But on the evidence of this twisted, high-tech "Wild Bunch" update, [Hill]'s still just the poor man's Sam Peckinpah. All the ethics and issues have been eliminated from Hill's nuevo western film, leaving only the violence, the spent bullets and the copious slo-mo flow of blood.

Beware of horror films that begin with a bad dream -- they usually go on that way as well. Case in point: Popcorn, which has several good ideas that, unfortunately, go unrealized.

Genre fans will appreciate the blood flow and the gore, and director Anthony Hickox keeps things moving so that there's never a dull moment -- or dull blade. Consider Hell raised.

Boiling Point is a bad cable movie -- USA as opposed to HBO -- temporarily masquerading as a theatrical release; even the presence of one hot actor, Wesley Snipes, can't elevate it past lukewarm status. Dennis Hopper, here reduced to an unamusing caricature of himself, further cools things down. The end result, if truth-in-titling were in effect: "Tepid Point."

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II may be derivative, but for the most part it's clever enough to trade on its sources with humor and class. It's "Peggy Sue Lives on Elm Street," with dollops of "Carrie," "The Exorcist" and a half dozen other genre stalwarts.

The level of humor, of course, is familiarly low -- with nothing more deadly than the Crypt Keeper's puns ("Frights! Camera! Hack-tion!"). As for the gore, let's just say the demons are slimy, heads do roll and bodies are ripped asunder

A moment past its concept, Fortress settles into a mix of sci-fi and prison cliches that result in predictable and often silly confrontations, including a not-so-great escape. Much of the blame lies with Lambert, as vapid here as he has been in the "Highlander" fiascoes.

Critters 2 is flat, lacking the kinetic energy, tight pacing and generally better acting of its predecessor.

A talky European Grand Prix thriller/romantic potboiler. [14 Sep 2007, p.WE38]

Typically hollow and patchy, the script is low par for the course, the acting close behind. Where it's a cut above the rest is in the work of Yugoslavian cinematographer Bojan Bazelli: His outdoor shots, both day and night, are superbly lit and cleanly shot, as if this were an A film. And with Marcus Manton's crisp editing, Pumpkinhead looks three times as good as it is.

In making the transition from small page to big screen, Tank Girl gains very little and gives up nothing. Working from a generally faithful script by Teri Sarafian, director Rachel Talalay opts for an approach that emphasizes surface and flash at the expense of depth and coherence -- much like its source. The result is a bracing film that's halfway between a string of MTV videos (Courtney Love put together the edgy soundtrack) and some of that network's over-the-top cartoons. [31 March 1995, p.D07]

Judgment Night is regrettably familiar fare.

A thrill-an-hour distraction that promises much more than it delivers.

If Rogers moves through the film somewhat lethargically, Six Pack's bare-bones plot doesn't provide much inspiration. [20 July 1982, p.B4]

Only mildly exciting as it grinds toward its conclusion, Sniper falls apart in the last reel as writers Michael Frost Beckner and Crash Leyland dispense with credibility by turning the rebel and drug lord's forces into the Keystone Kartel, invoking a Magic Bullet and attempting an Oliver Stone denouement. Unfortunately, director Luis Llosa is no Oliver Stone.

Like too many genre directors these days, Ken Wiederhorn went for a mix of horror and comedy, and it's probably not his fault he succeeded mostly with the latter.

Like one of the victims, Innocent Blood feels about five quarts low.

But just as Pee-wee Herman's films are vehicles for his shtick, Elvira is mostly Elvira wisecracking and busting out of her dress. She's fun, a Transylvania Valley Girl grown up into the Queen of the Bs, but after 96 minutes you may start thinking more fondly about those '50s and '60s camp classics she's usually interspersed with.

The major problem with "For Love or Money" is its leads, since Fox is no Cary Grant and Anwar no Audrey Hepburn. Fox is sweetly engaging at times but he still seems too boyish to be convincing. And though he wheels and deals with flair, no romantic sparks fly between him and Anwar. Of course, as she proved with Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman," it takes two to tango -- and Anwar simply is too vapid an actress, a poor woman's Adrienne Shelly with a flat voice, wan looks and all too little presence.

In the end, family ties are re-strung, but the morals remain annoyingly at loose ends.

Unless you're a Van Damme or martial arts fanatic, you're more likely to be thinking: No, merci.