Never fear, it’s Famous Monsters to the rescue.  Instead of dusting off your VHS copy of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 4, itself a remake of GONE WITH THE WIND with Jason Voorhees standing in for Scarlett, why not try something new?  We’ve put together a list of the best Halloween-ready horror movies from the past couple years.  Some are obscure, some are more popular, all will leave you eager for daylight to bring blessed safety from the unstoppable terror.

10.  THE CRAZIES

Better than most remakes and boasting one of the most stellar casts in recent horror film history, THE CRAZIES stars Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell as a husband and wife struggling to escape a town that’s lost its mind.  A virus is unleashed in the town’s water supply that turns every character into a murderous psychopath, and the military, instead of helping, quickly finds itself over its head and adds to the pandemonium.  From the very opening, where a shotgun toting farmer wanders into a junior league baseball game, the film puts the viewer on edge.  Olyphant has the grizzled hero shtick down to a tee, as anyone who’s seen him on JUSTIFIED can attest, and Mitchell brings strength and ferocity to her role as Olyphant’s pregnant wife and the town doctor.  The film does a wonderful job building the paranoia and forcing everyone to question his or her own sanity.  If you live in a small town, you might look at your neighbors askance the next time you see them after watching this.  You never know when one might snap…

9.  SLITHER

For those that want a side salad of humor with their ribeye of terror and their mashed potatoes of suspense (it’s getting late and I’m hungry), SLITHER is the film for you.  Starring every geek’s hero Nathan Fillion, SLITHER follows the residents of a small town in the wake of an alien meteorite strike.  An extraterrestrial beastie takes over Michael Rooker’s body and sets about multiplying.

The way the alien goes about this is enough to make me rethink my aforementioned dinner choices.  He uses two gross tentacle things to impregnate a vicitim, who balloons to the size of a barn and explodes into these little leech things that overtake the town.  It’s directed by James Gunn so as to be horrific yet tongue-in-cheek at the same time.  Real danger is afoot, but there’s bathroom humor mixed in with bathroom horror.  Literally, cause there’s a gross bathtub scene followed by a hilarious phone call about who’s to blame for clogging a toilet.  You’ll laugh, you’ll scream, it will haunt your dream.

Have you considered The Lap Band?

8.  THE DESCENT

There’s nothing funny about this one, unless you find this funny:  it’s not just decent, it’s THE DESCENT!  Didn’t think so.

A group of female spelunkers go off the map to explore a forgotten cave system.  As it turns out, the system was forgotten for a reason.  Pale cave monsters descend on the women out of nowhere, and the whole thing turns into a battle of the sexes taken to the extreme.  What makes this movie so fantastic isn’t the monsters, although they’re plenty scary, but the fact that the film would be just as scary without the cave dwelling predators.  Even before the monsters arrive, director Neil Marshall creates an intense feeling of claustrophobia.  The characters crawl into tighter and tighter spaces, and when a cave-in occurs, our breath grows just as rapid as theirs does.  The icing on the cake of this film is an ongoing battle of wills between two characters that ends in a particularly shocking way.

7.  THE MIST

Before THE WALKING DEAD, Frank Darabont turned his eye toward an adaptation of this Stephen King novella.  THE MIST was a marked departure from Darabont’s previous collaborations with King, THE GREEN MILE and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION.  MIST focuses on a different kind of prison, an impromptu one where a bunch of strangers are thrown together in a small town grocery store and forced to fend for themselves against an otherworldly bestiary.  The real threat comes from within though, as Thomas Jane struggles to maintain order and protect his son from the increasingly unhinged occupants inside.  Like THE CRAZIES, THE MIST shows the loathing and the hatred that can exist just under the surface between neighbors, and Darabont brings a classy touch to an otherwise schlocky concept.  The DVD includes a black and white version which gives the film a certain old-school creature feature style.

And the ending.  Oh, the ending.  Stephen King said in an interview that he would actually use the climax of the film in place of the non-ending used for the novel if he got the chance.  Can’t say I blame him.  It’s a doozy.

6.  TRICK ‘R TREAT

Famous Monsters’ love for TRICK ‘R TREAT should be readily apparent.  Not only did we include it in our list of UNIVERSAL HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHT attractions we’d love to see, but it’s required viewing for us every Halloween since its release.  With four stories interwoven to tell the story of one terrifying town on All Hallows’ Eve, TREAT offers humor and gore in equal abundance.  Each individual segment functions almost like a twisted short story or a classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode, providing a wonderful “Gotcha!” moment at the end of every self-contained arc.  As the film jumps back and forth in time to showcase the various stories, we learn more and more about the town and what makes its characters tic.  What in one story appears to be a crazy old man next door turns out to be a mean old man in the fight of his life against a supernatural foe in the film’s climax.  A serial killer who’s a family man, a gaggle of beauties with a gory secret in the woods, and a prank gone horribly wrong round out the proceedings.  After watching this film, you’ll never look at carving pumpkins the same way again.

Believe me when I say this rather innocuous-looking scene does not end well

NEXT PAGE

Here’s a rundown of the plot as per the press release, and scroll down to check out the pictures: Twelve-year old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is viciously bullied by his classmates and neglected by his divorcing parents. Achingly lonely, Owen spends his days plotting revenge on his middle school tormentors and his evenings spying on the other inhabitants of his apartment complex. His only friend is his new neighbor Abby (Chloe Moretz), an eerily self-possessed young girl who lives next door with her silent father (Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins). A frail, troubled child about Owens’s age, Abby emerges from her heavily curtained apartment only at night and always barefoot, seemingly immune to the bitter winter elements. Recognizing a fellow outcast, Owen opens up to her and before long, the two have formed a unique bond.

When a string of grisly murders puts the town on high alert, Abby’s father disappears, and the terrified girl is left to fend for herself. Still, she repeatedly rebuffs Owen’s efforts to help her and her increasingly bizarre behavior leads the imaginative Owen to suspect she’s hiding an unthinkable secret.

Discuss this story at the Famous Monsters of Filmland Official Forum!

Let Me In

The film is directed by Matt Reeves, director of 2008′s monster hit Cloverfield.

The film is, like the Swedish original, based on the novel by John Adjvide Lindqvist. That original film, directed by Tomas Alfredson and released in Sweden and the US in 2008, has been hailed as a genre masterpiece.

The remake stars Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Moretz, Elias Koteas and Richard Jenkins. Shooting is still underway in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

My first disappointment with Let The Right One In has nothing to do with Alfredson’s film, but rather a remake, titled Let Me In, that Overture Films decided they had the right to do. And secondly, now Magnolia has released a US DVD and Blu-ray version of the film completely lost in translation. Click over to Icons of Fright for the skinny. Snapshots are even included, pouring salt on the wound. And yes, it is horrifying.

Based on a best selling book from Sweden, the film is about “Oscar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire feasting on his neighbours.”

Speaking of Cloverfield, Comingsoon.net rallied fans of the film together again over the weekend when they revealed there will be a sequel to the box office hit. The site spoke with producer J.J. Abrams of the film at the Wondercon in San Francisco who confirms they’re actually working on a second entry right now. Imagine my surprise because when the movie hit theaters, Abrams and director Matt Reeves rejected the idea of a potential sequel altogether. Read below or see Comingsoon.net for all the details.

“We’re actually working on an idea right now,” Abrams told the packed crowd. “The key obviously at doing any kind of sequel, certainly this film included, is that it better not be a business decision. If you’re going to do something, it should be because you’re really inspired to do it. It doesn’t really have to mean anything, doesn’t mean it will work, but it means we did it because we cared, not because we thought we could get the bucks. We have an idea that we thought was pretty cool that we’re playing with, which means there will be something that’s connected to ‘Cloverfield,’ but I hope it happens sooner than later because the idea is pretty sweet.”

Pandorum— from director Christian Alvart (Case 39 and Antibodies), Pandorum is a science fiction thriller that centers on the “story of an astronaut who awakes from his hyper sleep chamber only to discover he’s alone on a massive spaceship. He ventures towards the bridge in search of others and to try and figure out what happened.”

Let The Right One In—director Matt Reeves of Cloverfield will be helming the English-language remake of Tomas Alfredson’s vampire movie of the same name. Based on a best selling book from Sweden, the film is about “Oscar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire feasting on his neighbours.”

The Crazies—is a remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 zombie film.  Directed by Breck Eisner, The Crazies “revolves around people in a small Kansas town who are beset by a virus that causes insanity and death after a mysterious toxin contaminates the local water supply.”

Mark you calendars.  Let The Right One In comes to theaters in New York and Los Angeles on October 24th.  Trust me, you’ll love it.  I’ll see you all in line.

Synopsis: “Oscar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire feasting on his neighbours. Based on the Best Selling Book from Sweden, this multiple award-winning film is a unique blend of drama, suspense, vampirism, and a love story, all set against the atmospheric backdrop of a snow-filled winter.”

Winner, Best Picture – Tribeca Film Festival.