THE WOMAN IN BLACK marks a change of pace for star Daniel Radcliffe, for director James Watkins and for Hammer Films, which co-produced it. The British studio made its rep decades ago for bringing heretofore unseen full-color excess to screen horror, while WOMAN flies in the face of today’s FX/gore-driven fare by aiming for quieter yet palpable chills.

Don’t be fooled by the trailers; THE GREY is much more than the simple man-vs.-wolf dustup those previews would lead you to believe. It’s also a heavier film than you’d expect from director/co-writer Joe Carnahan, whose last two features, THE A-TEAM and SMOKIN’ ACES, took a smirky approach to action. THE GREY is deadly serious, and seriously good.

Having skipped back into the past for an origin story with 2009’s RISE OF THE LYCANS, the UNDERWORLD franchise returns to the present (or near future, or whenever these flicks are set) with AWAKENING. The pitch this time was that now, the vampires and Lycans would be battling a new common enemy: humans. Unfortunately, that’s not the movie they wound up making.

THE ORPHAN KILLER is one of those slasher movies that puts so much effort into being a legitimately produced feature that it forgets to bring anything else to the table. Playing out like a HALLOWEEN sequel with Catholic baggage, it follows pretty dance teacher Audrey (Diane Foster), who at a young age was orphaned, along with her brother Marcus, when their mother was senselessly murdered by home invaders. As an adult, Amber returns to her former orphanage to stage a recital and discovers Marcus (David Backus) still on the premises, wearing a mask equally reminiscent of Leslie Vernon and Slipknot and murdering people in the name of Jesus.

As the horror film-festival circuit starts to ramp up for 2012, there’s a filmmaking team called Fatal Pictures, made up of producer/director Richard Powell and producer Zach Green, to watch out for. Their style is a mix of dark drama and fright that tends to deal with the horrors inside ourselves rather than the world around us.

DON’T GO IN THE WOODS is not a remake of the 1981 film of the same title—which is probably just as well, given that that movie occupies one of the lowest rungs on the slasher-flick ladder. Instead, the directorial debut of actor Vincent D’Onofrio harks back to a much sporadic trend: the horror musical.

In response to our own Bekah McKendry’s positive review of the already controversial  THE DIVIDE, this writer has opted to offer a different, less enthusiastic perspective.