You gotta wonder about film distributors sometimes. Did the people who are releasing CHAIN LETTER, which has been bounced out of two previous release dates and landed on the same day as the highly publicized debut of HATCHET II, really think there was room in the marketplace for two movies about hulking killers bloodily dispatching hapless victims?

It’s a cliché in prison movies (or any films involving incarceration) that you get to know the bad guys right away. In writer/director Philip Koch’s debut movie PICCO, which plays like a cross between the 2001 German psychological shocker DAS EXPERIMENT (remade this year as THE EXPERIMENT) and the 1979 British classic drama SCUM, the interesting thing is that you never know who’s going to turn nasty, or why.

A caveat is in order regarding MONSTERS (debuting today via video-on-demand, though of course it’s highly recommended you see it on the big screen if you can; go here for a list of playdates that begin October 29). Don’t go into it expecting a scare-a-minute creature feature; debuting writer/director Gareth Edwards has a different dramatic approach in mind. But do go in expecting to see one of the most remarkable and accomplished first-film achievements in recent memory.

BURIED can’t necessarily be classified as a straight horror film, but it’s likely that you won’t have a more harrowing experience in a movie theater this year. At the screening I attended, the end credits were greeted with the loudest tension-relieving sighs I’ve heard since THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

M. Night Shyamalan didn’t script or direct DEVIL—he was just one of the producers, and it’s based on his story—but since this is the film that may forever be remembered for turning “From the mind of M. Night…” into a viral punchline, it’s worth noting that DEVIL (billed as “The Night Chronicles 1” on screen, if no longer in the marketing materials) does mark something of a change in direction for the beleaguered auteur. Rather than build up to a heretofore concealed, big-surprise plot twist, this movie takes the different if ill-advised tack of explaining in advance what it’s all about.

As a lifelong horror-film enthusiast, I am forever chasing the dragon for the almighty fright. As you age and the divides between fantasy and reality become sadly concrete, it’s very difficult to totally suspend your disbelief and immerse yourself in the supernatural, to have films about “things” from the ether affect you. But oh, how you want them to.

The best evidence that THE WARD (which premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival) was directed by John Carpenter is that his name is above the title. It’s certainly not on the screen; working from a maladroit script by Sean and Michael Rasmussen, Carpenter—who hasn’t made a feature since 2001’s deliriously silly genre mashup GHOSTS OF MARS—directs like a journeyman rather than an auteur.