Horror is most effective when the graphic scares are matched with an emotional dimension, something at which Ellis aims but doesn’t quite arrive — a shortcoming that also undersells the marvels of his first-rate ensemble cast.

Even as their film stretches its flights of fancy past breaking point, there are pleasures to be taken from the blithe, handmade execution of its vision, throwing everything in the pot from creaky animal puppetry to 8-bit effects.

Wild Indian doesn’t quite add up, but it heralds an important new voice — not just because of his Native American heritage (although that plays a central role in this project’s concerns), but even more on account of the complexity he’s willing to acknowledge in his characters.

Though helmer Volker Schlondorff succeeds in painting the bleakness of this extrapolated future, he fails to create a strong and persistent connection with the heroine’s plight.

Film is effective in its own right, but as with most sequels, it lacks freshness. American actress Burt is any adolescent boy’s fantasy seductress. Rest of the cast is adequate, but a letdown compared with the original’s.

Low-key and bland in the extreme, it’s strictly for film buffs.

Effervescent performances from an ebullient ensemble make Finding You a palatable and compelling female coming-of-age tale.

It has a pleasing brawn and sweep, and you get caught up in it. As meat-and-potatoes escapism, it’s good diner food served with extra ketchup.

The cumulative assassinations begin to ache like a mysterious bruise, making the audience feel the psychic weight of living in fear. Yet, the style of the film is more teen soap opera than vérité miserablism.

The Lover, a sophisticated adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ bestselling memoir about her love affair as a 15-year-old with a rich, older Chinese man, lacks the distinctive voice and ambiance of the book, but the abundant sex – soft-core and tasteful – and the splendid sets make up for the film’s banal style.

Blind Fury is an action film with an amusing gimmick, toplining Rutger Hauer, as an apparently invincible blind Vietnam vet who wields a samurai sword with consummate skill.

Kevin Kline as an unorthodox but indispensable detective tracking a serial strangler infuses this improbable Gotham-set romantic policier with personality.

Beauvois brings everything together in the movie’s final minutes, although it’s hard to shake the feeling that Drift Away has dodged what should have been its central social concern. Renier, a former child actor who began his career a quarter-century ago in the Dardenne brothers’ “La Promesse,” only gets better with age.

Quite what we gain from the experience is uncertain, with most viewers likely to leave the film understanding little more of the Unabomber than they did two hours before. Still, Ted K is impressive and oppressive in equal measure.

Murphy and the filmmakers clearly want to establish Murphy as an action hero in the mold of Stallone and Van Damme (Carter wrote the Stallone starrer “Tango & Cash” and co-scripted the Van Damme feature “Nowhere to Run”), but they lack the courage of their convictions. Pic is bracketed by scenes of Eddie the funny man, just in case anybody forgets the performer’s roots.

Erich Kästner’s slim novel originally translated in 1932 as “Fabian. The Story of a Moralist” is a brilliantly astute rendering of life in Weimar Berlin, straightforward and yet surreal, witty and perverse. To tackle it in cinema would seem like an impossible task, and while Dominik Graf’s Fabian – Going to the Dogs is to be commended for getting quite a lot right, the movie is blowsy where the book is succinct, awkwardly paced and portentous where Kästner is consistently rhythmical and unpretentious.

Writer John Cassavetes wants to show that there’s nothing like the purity of first love, but he doesn’t provide his triangle sufficient psychological motivation to ground their otherwise erratic behavior. The script feels incomplete, and is further marred by a missing third act and a lack of discernible point of view.

Roger Spottiswoode, vet editor who co-authored a respected book on the subject with Karel Reisz, makes a competent directing debut here.

Kier isn’t panhandling for laughs by playing some tired gay stereotype. There’s a heart-on-his-sleeve sincerity to the performance that’s better than the material merits, for Stephens has written an earnest but anemic script.

There’s bravery in Bateman’s willingness to explore this state of mind, to put so much of herself on the table, but she rolls credits just as things were getting interesting: when Violet blocks out the voices and finally starts listening to herself.

It’s so removed from having a dark side that you know you’re getting the feel-good version of a Tom Petty portrait.

Underplayed is too gentle a probe to risk targeting industry leaders or fandom for more than a moment here or there.

An interesting plot premise holds out considerable promise for this Alfred Hitchcock production, but I Confess is short of the suspense one would expect.

It’s friendly and diverting and formulaic, in an inoffensive and good-natured way, and it’s a totally minor affair.

Warners give the pic its usually nifty productional accoutrements, and that includes casting, musical scoring and Howard Hawks’ direction but the basic story is too unsteady.

Within its modest boundaries, Bloodthirsty does a creditable enough job balancing supernatural suspense with the drama of a young artist’s insecurities at a key early career juncture.

Although the journey feels rather drawn out in the film’s 142-minute running time, and is strewn with one ear-splitting brawl too many, the mystery of each protagonist’s true intentions, and the unpredictability of their course of action, keep tensions on a continuous simmer.

What’s good about the movie is that Crystal, who co-wrote and directed it, has an inside knowledge of the showbiz comedy world (as he demonstrated in 1992 when he directed and starred in the acerbically accomplished “Mr. Saturday Night”), and the prickly vivacity with which he portrays it roots the movie in something real.