Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat. Although technically released in 1990, this film oozes ‘80s-style fun-lovin’ horror from every pore, and in large part this is the reason to see it. As an exercise in fright or action it is middling at best, working on too broad a canvas, and with so many characters and subplots that it doesn’t generate much focused intensity. As a work of vampire fiction, though, it notably prefigures both the Charlaine Harris synthetic blood approach and the vamp-on-vamp wars of Christopher Golden’s magnificent “Shadow” novels. Also, for its Huey Lewis-like music and couple of outrageous moments of dark humor, Sundown is a more-than-decent excuse to munch popcorn in the dark.

Just don’t think of this is as a Bruce Campbell film per se: he doesn’t even appear in the first twenty minutes and for the remainder he functions mostly as a secondary character, doing a toned-down version of his monster-slayer shtick. (Instead, the movie unfortunately spotlights a couple of incredibly boring married humans and their kids, played by two atrociously unskilled child actors.) Hardcore Campbell fans who don't know Sundown may still get a kick out of seeing him in a mildly romcom-like role when he was still so young and handsome—in his tweed jackets and bowtie he recalls the “dashing nerd” character played so memorably by Cary Grant or Henry Fonda in screwball comedy mode. As for the rest of the cast, David Carradine delivers an uneven performance but one that’s almost made up for by a highly effective turn by the great John Ireland. Among its many extras, the DVD sports three really disarming and candid interviews with Campbell, Carradine, and M. Emmet Walsh that will leave you with a warm genre-movie glow. September 23

Breathing Room. I was trying very hard to like this movie, to admire its resourcefulness and whatever other positives I could find, such as the overall quality of the acting and the economy of the one-set location. In the end, I even started thinking that Breathing Room would be a nifty stage play, especially given how all the lights go out whenever a murder is committed: this seems like the perfect way to make a live audience tingle and shudder in the dark as it hears the various thumps and screams around the theater. But in a movie I think we need a bit more in terms of technique and engagement. Even more so with a storyline that’s not exactly new for horror movies made during this century—a group of strangers “wake up” in an austere interior location and are gradually tormented and killed by a talky, superior-sounding, um, jerk. Along the way, we learn about their moral faults and dirty secrets. In short, I’m guessing that someone connected with Breathing Room has seen the SAW movies, in particular the second one, which featured the same premise of the victim-group including an unknown “collaborator.” In Breathing Room, you can spot who that mole is almost from the get-go, and the final reveal about the motives behind all the carnage is particularly unsatisfying. My advice is to skip this one unless you’re friends with someone associated with this project, in which case I’d actually be encouraging in terms of future efforts: there’s talent on hand here, it’s just that it’s applied to such wrong-headed ideas that there might as well not be.

Trackman. This weakest title in the Ghost House Underground lineup recalls BOTCHED, my favorite horror-comedy of 2007, in both premise and its specifically Russian setting, but unfortunately those are the only things that the two movies share. There’s no sense of humor in Trackman, not even for comic relief or of the mordant variety. That would be okay if there was a genuinely bleak and original vision behind Trackman, but that’s absent as well. Still, if there were generally some suspense or horror (I’ll take either) at some point, that could also be enough, but Trackman comes up empty-handed there, too. All right, then at least let me spend some time with characters who will impress me in some way, but here again the filmmakers seem oblivious to the basic rules of audience engagement. I’m not talking about making characters likable or making sure that we can “identify” with them—I find both strategies to be overused—but at least give me a crew that’s not 100% doltish. Even the bad guys are very vanilla in Trackman—but actually, that would be insulting to vanilla, which does have some flavor. The bad guys, by the way, are actually the good guys. You see, during a heist getaway, a subterranean, Chernobyl-surviving, pickax-wielding maniac starts stalking the robbers and their leggy hostages. They die one by one. Much use is made of screaming and fog machines. The monster uses a machine gun at one point. Even for me, hardly a horror purist, that was a particularly lame moment. In sum, Trackman was by far the biggest waste of my time of any DVD I’ve viewed this Halloween season, and if you’ve read this far, you know I'm inclined to be generous in terms of horror offerings. Perhaps a decade ago, when the idea of high-gloss genre movies coming out of Russia for Western consumption was still a novelty, there might be something in Trackman to hold your attention, but in late 2008, please… avoid at all costs. October 14.

Bryan Loves You. This is why I watch horror. No, not that I loved, liked, or am even particularly recommending this film—but I admire what writer-producer-director Seth Landau is trying to do, and most of what doesn’t work is because his reach exceeds his grasp. Mostly I like that horror is the platform for this kind of ambition—because what else could be, really?—and I like that Anchor Bay can back this kind of original vision. Blending a paranoid thriller about cults and wrongful institutionalization with horror elements such as creepy masks and cameos by genre standouts such as Tony Todd, George Wendt, and Brinke Stevens seems like enough to shoot for. But Landau ups the ante by doing the “this is all real footage” deal—a conceit that ultimately doesn’t hold up anymore than the lousy stuntwork and inconsistent performances. Bryan Loves You works best as a series of disconnected scenes, many of which shine individually, rather than a satisfying feature-length narrative; its somewhat elliptical ending is particularly irritating, especially given Todd’s William Castle-like intro (something like, “We apologize for the shocking nature of what you’re about to see and if you feel sick, please inform a theater usher”). The DVD commentary, by the way, is a trip—just about everyone involved in the flick is included except maybe the caterer. September 23