Among the handful of movies released by the late-aughts-resurrected Hammer Films, The Woman in Black is the one that feels most like the old-school Hammer that film fans the world over hold near and dear to their hearts. (Let Me In, however, remains the best.) It’s low-key and Gothic, and relies little on special effects to get viewers scared.

Based upon a slim novel by Susan Hill that already earned an adaptation by British television in 1989, this new Woman has the fortunate status of having a leading man in Daniel Radcliffe, in his first post-Harry Potter role. You’ll quickly forget he was a boy wizard; here, he’s a lawyer and father of one little boy, and still grieving over the death of his wife during childbirth — so much so that he’s more than a tad suicidal.

His employer sends him to one of those out-of-the-way villages where everybody knows about — but dare not go there, much less speak of — the mansion known as Eel Marsh House. His duty is to sort through the paperwork of its newly deceased owner so her will can be settled, but he spends more time investigating the expansive home’s strange noises and the fleeting appearance of the title character, whose visage fleets about his peripheral vision.

But not ours. Although used sparingly by director James Watkins (Eden Lake), the ghost gets right up in our faces to provide effective jolts in line with the recent Insidious, which also preferred practical effects over the all-too-easy (and all-too-artificial) computer-generated ones. That the specter at this film’s center has a rep for sending children to their death raises the stakes in an already eerie tale. Atmosphere abounds, expressing a visual chill to match the physical one moving up your spine. —Rod Lott

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Taking reality TV to its logical, inevitable extreme, Slashers is presented as a live Japanese game show, in which six American contestants are trapped in a maze for an hour and a half with three masked serial killers. Whoever — if anyone — is left standing at the end wins a $12 million booty. There are no rules, other than trying to stay alive.

The cameraman follows the contestants as they’re chased by Dr. Ripper, Preacherman and Chainsaw Charlie, whose redneck accent, red hair and Alfred E. Neuman mask make him a dead ringer for comedian Carrot Top. Running and running are Tough Black Guy, Fat Hispanic Guy Who Sounds Exactly Like Dennis Franz, Asshole Frat White Guy, Whiny Jewish Girl Who Keeps Losing Her Shirt, Hot Model Girl Who Runs Around in Her Bra, and Tough Butchy Girl with Multiple Sclerosis.

The concept is original, the sets are impressive, the gore is good ’n’ gory and, best of all, there are a few true jolts. Essentially, there are only two drawbacks to Slashers:
1) the idea of having only one cameraman following six people is absurd, and
2) all the contestants are terrible actors. And I mean terrible — awful, stinky terrible.

But Slashers is worthy viewing, primarily because it’s the rare shot-on-video feature that doesn’t overreach and pretend to be a slick, glossy thriller. A live show would be shot on video rather than film, so director Maurice Devereaux is able to use that to his advantage, given a low, low budget. Extra credit is awarded for its dead-on parodies of Japanese television. —Rod Lott

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A remake of the Japanese 2002 film of the same name, Dark Water has its share of spooky elements and is a rather effective creepy thriller — right up until the time you realize that it’s not really Dark Water at all, but rather a liquefied version of The Ring or Ringu or whatever you wanna call it.
 
That’s not coincidental. Both Dark Water and Ringu are based on novels by Kôji Suzuki. As a result, the film adaptations, like the author, go to the same well once too often.
 
Checklist the similarities:
• A single mother trying to do the best she can and battling self-doubt as she raises her quasi-psychic child.
• A constant, relentless rain; at least The Ring had the good sense to make the locale Seattle.
• A creepy dead girl, victimized by bad parenting and now in the market for a new mommy figure.
• Oh, and lots of yucky, dark H20 and something involving a well or a water tank or any other water receptacle you can think of.
 
As the single mom, Jennifer Connelly does a fine job, and the supporting cast — led by Tim Roth and John C. Reilly — is equally terrific. But an awful lot of horror-flick cliches lead to a wholly unsatisfying conclusion here. It’s a bummer, too, because director Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) does a masterful job with the atmospherics. —Phil Bacharach

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In The Ape, Boris Karloff is a doctor who’s alienated the townspeople by conducting secret experiments with animals. Using their spinal fluid, he’s been trying to find a cure for paralysis, particularly for Frances, a cute wheelchair-bound young woman whose legs haven’t moved in 10 years.

Doc catches a lucky break when a gorilla escapes from the local circus and breaks into his home. Karloff kills it, skins it and uses its hide to disguise himself as the real deal, so he can go prancing around town at night (in obvious day-for-night shots) and extract spinal fluid from humans. The trick works and progress is made, so he keeps going ape to get more fluid so Frances may walk again.

Written by The Wolf Man’s Curt Siodmak, this has to be the most bizarre concept for an early horror film. Think about it: Karloff is walking around in the skin of a gorilla he slaughtered. How did he clean it? How does he not reek of monkey entrails? How lucky was he to murder an ape just his size? The mind boggles; the movie entertains. —Rod Lott

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Throughout most of its 99 minutes, the Italian-made Werewolf Woman is rhapsodically, wonderfully terrible in that way only a sleazy exploitation movie made by pretentious foreigners can be. While some unfortunate stretches of eyeball-glazing, poorly dubbed exposition exist, the sheer insanity of the rest of the picture more than makes up for them.

Busty French Sondra Locke look-alike Annik Borel plays Daniella, a severely disturbed rape victim whose fears of sex and men are exacerbated by her obsession with her resemblance to an ancestor who was burned at the stake for being a werewolf (which we see and which is hilarious), causing her to devolve into a lethal, wolf-like state the night her strong sexual feelings toward her sister’s husband correspond with a full moon.

Sent to a mental hospital, she escapes after killing a crazed nymphomaniac who attempts to rape her. More folks are killed along the way, including another wannabe rapist who actually shouts, “I’m gonna rape you!” while he’s attacking her. She briefly finds happiness and salvation in the arms of a gentle, loving stuntman, but reverts back to her old ways when her beauty attracts the attention of a trio of thugs, who rape her (sense a theme here?) and then kill her lover. Her trail of bodies finally ends when the detective on her case is inspired by a cohort’s dream to come to the forest she has made her home.

Part horror, part psychological thriller, part softcore porn and part revenger, the film also known as The Legend of the Wolf Woman is a whole lot of crazy in a frequently fascinating package. It’s never for one moment genuinely good, but in the end, that’s what makes it so great. —Allan Mott

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