Fantastic Fest

Horror movies don't necessarily need rules, but if they're going to go to the trouble to establish some, they might as well follow them... at least for a little while. The Argentine ghost slasher gorefest 'Memory of the Dead' sets up this whole conceit about a Satanic ritual and the dead rising from their graves, and it makes a big stink about how everyone will be safe from the ghouls as long as t

Leos Carax's 'Holy Motors' is the best dream you'll ever have without actually falling asleep. It's a blast of pure, unbridled subconscious -- or maybe superconscious -- and a brilliant and melancholic love letter to movies, the craft of acting and life itself, which, 'Holy Motors' argues, are all kind of the same thing anyway.

We'd all like to think that if our backs were up against it and we had to fight for our loved ones, we'd all become Liam Neeson in 'Taken.' Of course, not everyone has "a particular set of skills." Or maybe your skill is to try and appease everyone as chaos escalates around you, praying that, somehow, everything will work out if you just keep bluffing? That would appear to be the strateg

14 year old Sandy worships next door neighbor and senior classmate Ashley like the Earth worships the sun, she says. But when the two girls accidentally off one of Ashley's ex-lovers, the two become closer than either of them ever imagined in 'Besties,' a small scale coming of age story from writer and director Rebecca Perry Cutter.

G is for Gimmick But gimmicks are not necessarily a bad thing. 'The ABCs of Death' (which could also be called '26 Ways to Barf') is the mother of all horror anthologies, collecting 26 short films, each from a different director, all representing a different way to bite it.

Just when you thought the found footage genre was dead, along comes something like 'The Conspiracy' to shake things up. Unlike 'Paranormal Activity' or 'The Blair Witch Project,' the heroes at the heart of this faux-documentary aren't up against a supernatural force, but rather the secret organizations that control and manipulate the world...which may or may not actually exist. Check out the trail

There are some films that choose to tell their story in a somewhat obtuse manner, staying one step ahead of the audience, making them work a bit to piece tother the logic of the story. Then there are others that just like to throw a bunch of crap up on the screen and hope it all comes together in the wash. (The wash being editing, music, sound design and special effects.) After a few hours of chew

When a movie called 'Judge Dredd' is as bad as 'Judge Dredd,' the "dreddful" jokes write themselves. The original 'Dredd' movie starring Sylvester Stallone was so horrifically awful, it rendered the property more radioactive than the post-apocalyptic wasteland surrounding the title character's hometown of Mega-City One. The popular future cop from the long-running British series '2000 AD

'Frankenweenie' will have a big presence at Comic-Con 2012 (there are already banners hanging up in San Diego) but Walt Disney Pictures has even more plans for Tim Burton's animated film: a film festival. 'Frankenweenie' will serve as the opening night film at Fantastic Fest 2012.