Screened Out: Creep-Outs and Carnage!

The original Fright Night was hip and humorous, but not necessarily scary. It was a model of that Gen X cheekiness that also shaped The Goonies, Heathers, Better Off Dead, and most similarly, The Lost Boys. This update is a little more milquetoast, but it boasts better acting, cooler effects and more action than the original.

Charley (Yelchin) is a bit of a jerk this time. He's abandoned his geek friend Mintz-Plasse (Superbad) for a hot girlfriend (Poots) and better acquaintances. Too bad, because Mintz-Plasse needs help to stake out their new neighbor, sexy handyman Farrell. Farrell's a bloodsucker out to feed on every single woman in town, including Yelchin's mom, Collette.

Some things are better done this time. Gone is Chris Sarandon's pedophilic creepiness for Farrell's sexy swagger; the Irishman almost steals the entire film. The setting, an isolated suburb outside of Las Vegas, is easier to destroy. David Tennant (one of TV's Dr. Whos) is wonderful as fake vampire slayer Peter Vincent. Fight sequence include a chilling van ride and battle that tears apart a museum-like Vegas penthouseâ┚¬â€one filled with various ways to slaughter the undead.

The movie's surprises are small, especially if you remember the original 1985 film. I'm not sure there was a really good reason for this remake, but at least it doesn't totally suck.

In this American update of an old teleplay, little Bailee Madison is a girl abandoned by her mother, sent to live with dad Pierce and his girlfriend Holmes. Pierce is flipping an old mansion with a dark history; a famous artist disappeared with his son a hundred years before. It seems there might be goblins or gnomes hiding in the woodwork.

This vivid, cinematic chiller fails for two reasons. The characters have no real, deep change, when they easily could have. At one point, the troubled Holmes is trying to figure out how to be a good stepparent to the mentally troubled girl, but then that struggle is dropped. Also, the story falls into giant plot holes, like the once Pierce and Holmes get a sense of what's going on, so they drug Madison and put her to bed, alone, while they plan a hasty exit. That's just dangerous parenting.

The Spanish films by GdT succeed because the characters are clearly drawn and the plot is subtle. (If you want your heart broken by a truly creepy film, rent The Orphanage; he produced it.) This film possesses chilling art direction, but not much more.

Ready for some more elaborate booby traps set by the Grim Reaper?

The fourth film was supposed to be the last (though they find a clever way around that). Also, actors don't portray charactersâ┚¬â€they're human meat. Like in the other films, Death is an evil Rube Goldberg fan, making the most ridiculously elaborate ways for people to expire. Death doesn't toy with his victimsâ┚¬â€they are relatively unaware of all the machinations leading to their grisly ends. No, kids, Death is playing with us, the audience, as we wince and squirm at all the possible ways bodies can get defiled.

D'Angosto is on a weekend retreat with several of his coworkers, when he has a premonition of a bridge collapse. He gets people off the bus just before eminent doom, cheating the Grim Reaper.  So over the next few weeks, invisible, vindictive Death finds disgusting ways to reclaim their souls.

Shakespeare it's not. If the victims seemed real, we might feel bad watching them get torched, skewered, and eviscerated. Still, this isn't as good as the first film, where the young people had to emotionally face their own mortality. I guess that approach got in the way of intricate slaughter sequences.

No, the joy hereâ┚¬â€and I use that term looselyâ┚¬â€is in how each disgusting killing is orchestrated. Death by gymnasium, death by massage, death by Lasikâ┚¬â€it's all morbid fun. Death doesn't aim high, but His work is well-executed.