A person or persons come up with a basic idea for a horror thriller and expand an outline to a full-blown screenplay that is made into a movie. And it comes so close to realizing its potential. However …

This is  what drags down “The Forest,” a promising movie that, just as it seems to be building up in intensity and complexity, suddenly cuts short, as if it were under a deadline and was forced to be concluded before the all the details could be wrapped up.

“The Forest” has some strong points, starting with its star, Natalie Dormer (“Game of Thrones,” “The Tudors” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay” films), along with a decent story line and a setting that can be overwhelming and creepy. That it falls short likely can be attributed to inexperience. The three screenwriters, Nick Antosca, Sarah Cornwell and Ben Ketai, had never written a full-length movie script. Antosca and Ketai mostly have some television credits, and for Cornwell, this was her first screenplay ever.

Director Jason Zada was directing his first feature-length movie here.

Dormer plays Sara Price, a woman with what appears to be a stable life and marriage, who learns that her twin sister, Jess, a teacher in Japan, has disappeared, last seen entering the Aokigahara Forest below the majestic Mt. Fuji.

The forest already has a grim history, the place being where, during wars and famine, the sick and elderly were taken and left abandoned to die. Now in modern times, the Aokigahara Forest is a destination for those who want to commit suicide.

While the Japan authorities assume Jess is dead, Sara, who like many twins shares a spiritual link with her sister, is convinced Jess is alive, just lost in the forest.

Sara flies to Japan, intent on going into the forest herself and finding Jess.

As she settles into lodgings near the forest, she meets Aiden (Taylor Kinney), a travel writer for an Australian magazine who has made arrangements to go into the forest, accompanied by a ranger, Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa). Sara talks Aiden into letting her join in on the trek, under an agreement that Aiden can write a story about Sara and her quest to locate her sister.

Unfortunately, the movie is nearly half over before the three people actually enter the forest. Granted there needs to be some set-up dialogue, as Michi, not really enthused about leading Sara into the forest, issues warnings about the bad vibes in this vast wilderness, claiming that any horrible things they might encounter — other than possible bodies of suicide victims — will only be in their imagination, that the forest can sense when a person entering the forest is sad and exploit this.

Otherwise, a lot of footage is wasted, showing Sara traipsing along, pulling her luggage, or riding a train, along with a totally unnecessary scare scene that takes place before she goes into the forest.

There are some flashback scenes that help reveal the relationship between Sara and Jess and offer an explanation as to why Sara is grounded and Jess is the more unstable one.

Once the title character, the forest, is on screen, the movie finally triggers uneasiness. After all, a wilderness of this vast size can be intimidating, just with the idea one could get lost and never be found. Add to that the fact that so many people died there, willingly or not, and you have an environment that is eerie and unsettling.

Just as Michi insists they have to turn around and go back, and return to continue the search the next day because you don’t want to be in the forest after dark, they come across Jess’ tent and her belongings. Sara stubbornly decides to stay there despite the approaching darkness and wait for Jess to come back to her camp. Aiden also decides to stay. Michi reluctantly leaves but insists that they stay put in the camp area until he returns the next day.

When darkness hits, the creepiness escalates and this is where “The Forest” is at its best. Particularly effective is the appearance of a young Japanese schoolgirl, Mei (Ibuki Kineda), who may have been a student of Jess and claims to know where Jess is — but she also just might be a figment of Sara’s imagination.

Now, if “The Forest” had been better paced and not wasted so much earlier footage, there might have been another 20-30 minutes to explore what Sara and Aiden encounter, along with more clues as to whether the forest had succeeded in messing with Sara’s mind, blurring the distinction between reality and hallucination.

Instead, there is a climax that looks rushed, leaving a lot of issues unresolved. We do learn the reason Jess might be more unstable than Sara. But other issues are just left standing. This might have been the intent of the movie makers, but some of it is so blatantly set aside it almost seems like massive holes in the story either were never written or filmed but chopped out.

The overall effect is that the viewer may feel cheated, as if the filmmakers were saying: this is a long tease — to get the rest you have buy the director’s cut version on DVD/Blu-Ray. The ending was handled in a way that does lead to discussion, but  there just was too much that got glossed over.

All these decades we were warned that Santa Claus “knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake.” Or what? You would not get anything for Christmas? Or maybe a stocking full of coal?

Meanwhile in Europe, most likely in Germany, there originated the story of Krampus, sort of an Anti-Claus, who instead of gift deprivation, dished out punishment to naughty children. Rather than being a jolly fat fellow with a white beard who wears a red outfit, Krampus had curled horns, cloven hooves, a slimy curled tongue, and he enhanced this menacing presence by carrying around a chain.

To this day Germanic and Alpine countries put together Krampusnacht celebrations in early December. But in North America it has only been in the last few years that Krampus has gained attention. Artwork, T-shirts and collectibles of this dark entity are becoming more frequent, as are small celebrations, such as Krampus walks in cities like Portland and New York.

Krampus also has popped up in North American entertainment, making a guest appearance in a season 10 episode of “American Dad!” titled “Minstrel Krampus.” He was even a subject of live-action episodes in TV series “Supernatural” and “Grimm.”

So with all this going on, it is a surprise that Krampus has barely been touched upon in the mini-industry of Christmas-themed horror movies.

Well, thanks to writer-director Michael Dougherty, that no longer is the case. Although “Krampus” is only Dougherty’s second feature-length film as a director, he has built some muscle in the industry as the screenwriter for “X-Men 2” and “Superman Returns,” enabling him to get the backing needed to make a high-profile movie.

Dougherty, an admitted Halloween fanatic, earned his chops in the business, having to deal with a skittish Warner Bros. studio that mishandled his 2007 Halloween anthology “Trick ‘r Treat.” Although it was shuttled off to the direct-to-DVD market, it built a following that is still growing. His monster trick-or-treater Sam has become a popular Halloween mask.

In interviews with Horrorhound and Rue Morgue magazines, Dougherty said that while he likes Christmas too he always believed it lacked the mischief and debauchery of Halloween, and he did some research on Christmas observances of the past. He found a darker side to the celebrations in the old Pagan traditions that were devoted to the acknowledging the arrival of winter solstice. Looking more into the Pagan roots of the holiday, he soon learned about Krampus.

Teaming up with co-writers Todd Casey and Zach Fields, Dougherty has crafted a film in “Krampus” that could become a favorite among fans of Christmas horror movies.

“Krampus” can be seen as an homage to the family-horror, fantasy films of the 1980s such as “Gremlins,” “Critters,” “Poltergeist” and “E.T.,” movies that made an impression on Dougherty when he was growing up.

In “Krampus” there are similarities between the families besieged by this horrible holiday spirit and the Griswolds and their relatives of the classic “Vacation” film series. You might call this main family the less goofy Griswolds since Dougherty and his co-writers declined to give them a last name.

Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Collette) are a middle-class couple with a teen daughter Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) and son Max (Emjay Anthony), who is still young enough to believe in Santa Claus. Also residing in the home is Tom’s mother from the old country, Omi (Krista Stadler), who by Tom’s own admission, “gets a little weird around Christmas.”

During the opening credits, Dougherty and team take a potshot at the commercialization of Christmas with darkly humorous scenes of holiday shopping chaos and trauma.

Tom and Sarah are going to host a Christmas gathering, as Sarah’s sister Linda (Allison Tolman from FX’s “Fargo”), her husband Howard (David Koechner, most recently seen as the scoutmaster-turned-walking-dead in “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse”) and their brood of creepy kids are visiting for the holidays.

This is not a Norman Rockwell Christmas. This is a dysfunctional group. Adding to the volatile family gathering is the usual peripheral relative (remember Aunt Edna in “Vacation”?), this time in the form of Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), the surprise guest who arrives lugging the baggage of bad vibes and overly candid comments.

Sarah is stressed, Tom is trying to keep things calm, Beth is barely engaged in all the hubbub and Max is the one who despite his young age longs for the more joyful Christmases of the past. Typically, things come unglued at the first family dinner, and it’s still only Dec. 23. Max, humiliated by his cousins for still believing in Santa Claus, tears up his letter to Santa and flings the scraps out the window. But instead of floating to the ground, they are sucked up by some power and disappear into the sky.

Soon the weather turns bad with a blizzard moving in. The power is knocked out. That is only the beginning. Max, in his despair, accidentally has summoned the terrifying power of Krampus. In other words, don’t count on Santa and his sleigh to show up this particular Christmas.

Dougherty uses the effective strategy, like that of “Jaws,” of not showing the beast until well into the terror. But there are plenty of other scares along the way. While toys coming to life can be fun and magical in other Christmas tales, in “Krampus” they just become horrifying and deadly. Naturally, the potentially creepiest of toys — clowns and jack-in-the-boxes — are on hand. And after seeing “Krampus,” viewers will never look at gingerbread cookies the same way again.

As the two families are forced to set aside simmering issues while they fight to survive, there comes with this the usual necessity of building trust and learning respect.

Eventually it is Omi who finally enlightens the family as to what is going on, revealing why she gets so weird around Christmas, and leaving poor Max to realize what he unwittingly did.

When Krampus does appear on screen —  mostly he is only shown in shadow silhouettes — he is a terrifying presence, surrounded by elves that are the antithesis of those little people happily residing at the North Pole. The Krampus beast was designed and put together by the Weta Workshop, a mostly practical special effects project wherein CGI was only used to erase any controlling wires and poles.

This Krampus goes beyond his job description. It is not just children he goes after. Everybody is on the naughty list here.

Dougherty effectively uses fearful anticipation to stir maximum dread, and the actual on-screen violence is minimal. The most graphic kills are reserved for the suddenly animated objects.

“Krampus” is capped off with an unsettling ending that requires viewers to guess what is going on. Thus, over the holiday meal, people who have seen the movie can discuss whether or not Krampus is done with his work on these two families.

Fifty years after Charles Schulz’s Peanuts gang leaped from the printed comics page to animation in “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the kids — along with a dog and a bird — are back with their first feature-length presentation since 1980, now sporting the magic of computer-generated imagery.

“The Peanuts Movie” definitely adds a visual fluidity common within the current crop of animated features. When the first trailers for “The Peanuts Movie” came out, many people lamented the modern look of the film, saying the simplistic artistry of the many Peanuts television specials and the four previous movies was what enhanced the charm of these efforts. And now, in addition to the computer graphics, a 3-D version is offered.

The animation for “The Peanuts Movie” did make provisions to emulate those familiar visuals of the earlier Peanuts adventures. The trees and other foliage in the background do not sway or billow in the breeze. The characters themselves at times look jagged.

Of course, as cute as the characters may be on screen, they have to resonate as the young kids in the strip that enchanted readers in the 50 years the strip ran.

That means Charlie Brown is the emotional core — the likable loser, the boy was endures setback after setback but sets aside his disillusionment and keeps on trying. Countering Charlie Brown is his dog Snoopy, the ultimate dreamer who despite an elaborate fantasy world really does have a grip on reality and always seems to land on his feet.

So naturally, the main story lines in “The Peanuts Movie” surround these two characters. It is winter and with the baseball season over — the ball field and pitchers mound are covered with snow — Charlie Brown turns to another activity to which his record of failures continues to mount — kite flying.

Then a shakeup in the neighborhood. A new family moves in and immediately Charlie Brown, the eternal optimist, sees an opportunity to make a fresh start with any kids in this new family — a friend who will not see Charlie Brown the failure.

It gets complicated, however, as the new child turns out to be a girl, the Little Red-Haired Girl that faithful readers of the strip rooted for Charlie Brown to win over — with no luck.

Frozen by his insecurities, Charlie Brown (voice of Noah Schnapp) nevertheless is thrown into situations in which he might make an impression on the girl — while also being faced with the prospect of unrelenting mortification if he screws up in front of her.

A big advantage of “The Peanuts Movie” is that the screenplay was written by Charles Schulz’s son Craig and grandson Bryan, who honor the characterizations that took hold over the 50 years of the strip.

While Charlie Brown tries avoid a train wreck in his objective to win the heart of The Little Red-Haired Girl, Snoopy, between lending moral support to his owner, builds his own fantasy, inspired by Charlie Brown’s efforts. He assumes his most famous alter ego — the World War I Flying Ace — whose pursuits in shooting down The Red Baron take on heroic twists as the ace, along with his ground crew of Woodstock and other bird buddies, must rescue the adorable lady beagle Fifi (Kristin Chenoweth), who has been taking prisoner by the Germans. By the way, the voice characterizations of Snoopy and Woodstock are recycled sound bites of the late Bill Melendez (1916-2008) that were used in the TV shows and movies.

As always, amid his almost always disastrous adventures, Charlie Brown is surrounded by a cast of characters so familiar to everybody who has ever read Peanuts or seen the animated productions. There is Lucy, perpetual antagonist to Charlie Brown, the big sister from hell, the undaunted pursuer of Schroeder’s love. There is Linus, the blanket-toting, philosophically sound brother of Lucy, a bedrock of common sense yet who is irrational in his need for security via a blanket and his undying belief in The Great Pumpkin. There is Sally, Charlie Brown’s sister whose respect for her big brother fluctuates wildly and who has her own continual frustration of unrequited love — Linus’ (“I am NOT your Sweet Babboo!”). There is Peppermint Patty, superb athlete and hopeless student, along with her friend, the bespectacled Marcie, whose grip on reality, like Linus, is pretty rooted except for one flaw — an inability to stop calling Peppermint Patty “sir.”

Other characters who were relegated to supporting cast roles in the strip are here also: Patty and Shermy, two of the original characters who pretty much disappeared in the latter years of the strip, as well as Violet, who was introduced into the strip a few months into its run; Frieda, the girl with naturally curly hair; the perpetually grimy Pig Pen; Schroeder, the pianist extraordinaire and fan of Beethoven; and Franklin, a boy who in the strip met Charlie Brown during a beach outing.

One character notably missing is Rerun, younger brother of Lucy and Linus, who became a major character in the last years of the strip, which ended in 2000. His omission actually is consistent with the timeline of the strip, as The Little Red-Haired Girl moved away from the neighborhood, leaving a brokenhearted Charlie Brown, about a year before Rerun was born.

The script does stray from some of the characters’ situations in the strips. In “The Peanuts Movie,” Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Franklin are classmates of Charlie Brown, Lucy, and others, while in the strips, these three lived in another town and attended a different school.

The story is sweet and funny, driven by situations in which all of us can relate to — who hasn’t identified with one or more of the Peanuts characters at one time or another? These kids can be incredibly cruel to one another while at other times offer keen insight and compassion.

While different composers have been employed over the years to score the animated Peanuts productions — in “The Peanuts Movie,” Christophe Beck wrote the score — the enduring music of Peanuts has always been the now classic jazzy songs written by Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976) that debuted in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” In a salute to Guaraldi’s work, two very familiar songs, “Linus and Lucy” and “Skating,” have been included in the soundtrack.

Also, interspersed in the feature are the comic strip sketches by Charles Schulz himself, serving as a reminder that it was the strip, after all, that introduced us to the Peanuts gang and made these characters a part of the daily lives of readers for nearly 18,000 strips.

Here is a gruesome question that can be asked in the spirit of the Halloween season:

Would you rather be consumed by zombies or cannibals?

Since the end result really isn’t all the desirable for the victim, the answer obviously would be: neither. However, if a person is up for offering an either/or answer, the better option might be the cannibals. After all, zombies just unceremoniously rip apart and devour victims raw — no thought put in at all for a zesty table presentation. Cannibals, or at least the ones featured in “The Green Inferno,” do take time to prepare their entrees so that the victim can go out with style and taste.

Zombies have overshadowed cannibals in recent years, although cannibalism became elegant and cerebral in the hands (and mouth) of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Still, good old gory cannibal movies seemed to have lost their way.

Well, leave it Eli Roth to set them on the right path again.

Roth, an actor, writer and director, has built a reputation through his “Cabin Fever” and “Hostel” for for not holding back in his explicit depictions of horrendous violence. While some have claimed his “The Green Inferno” may not be as horrifying as Ruggero Deodato’s “Cannibal Holocaust” (1980), it is definitely an homage to the genre and delivers on the blood and guts that hard core horror fans demand.

It takes a while before “The Green Inferno” gets into the crunch time (sorry), as the first half of the film is devoted to building the story and developing the characters.

The featured character is Justine (Lorenza Izzo, who despite all that director Roth put her through in this movie married him anyway last November), a college freshman who finds herself drawn into the campus activism. She is particularly attracted to Alejandro (Ariel Levy), a charismatic activist, and joins his group as it plans a risky protest in Peru.

The group is targeting developers who are bulldozing through the rain forest in the Amazon, not only killing vegetation but also threatening to exterminate a tribe that has been living in the forest for thousands of years. The activists have no weapons but are armed with mobile devices to record any possible violence and make sure any ugly incidents go viral.

So there is the usual build-up to this, along with an opportunity to inject some personality into the characters.

During the protest, Justine learns that the romanticism of activism can be easily crushed by brutal reality, not to mention cynicism by the people pulling the strings. But her troubles — along with everyone else’s — are just beginning.

Flying out of the Amazon after the protest that ends with them all of being rounded up and put back on their plane, the rickety aircraft crashes, and one can immediately sense that those who died in the crash were the lucky ones.

Traumatized by the crash, the survivors soon find themselves surrounded by members of a primitive tribe in which all but the top two leaders are wearing a red body paint. Tied up and taken to the village, where they are caged, the activists soon get an explicit preview of what is in for them.

Those familiar with Roth’s style will not be surprised at the brutal scene in which the first activist is prepared as a meal. It is cringe-inducing.

Roth does not pour it on with showing other victims as they are sliced and diced and set to be oven-baked. Instead he focuses on the dehumanization of the activists, whose interaction among themselves reveal the serious flaws in character.

The unnerving aspect of “The Green Inferno” is that the tribe members are not really evil. They simply are a product of their culture. They go about their bloody business with a serene sense of community. Ultimately, Justine is the only one of the prisoners able to make any connection with some of the villagers.

A wonderful aspect of Roth’s movies is that you cannot be assured there will be a happy ending or a chance at redemption. Justine appears to be The Final Girl, but given what Roth likes to do in his films, there is no guarantee of her survival.

An Eli Roth movie is not one for the mass audience. Even fans of horror movies have to really be engaged in viewing brutal and terrifying violence. Roth dares you to watch and and not squirm in your seat. One wonders, however, if Roth is deliberately slow in getting to the gore in his movies in order to allow people in the audience a chance to finish eating their popcorn before the blood and guts become the main attraction.

There is a scene in the opening moments of “Sinister 2” in which a survivor of “Sinister,” Deputy (James Ransone), now known ex Ex-Deputy So & So, consults with a priest, Father Rodriguez (James Beasley), on how to prevail over the evil he witnessed in the original movie. The priest responds that you cannot defeat evil, You can only protect yourself from it.

This sage statement can also apply to movie sequels. You cannot stop them from being churned out but you can protect yourself from them. Which is not to say sequels cannot be effective, especially with horror movies. The vital requirement is that the follow-up movies bring something new to the table.

Even back in the heyday of the Universal monster movies, all it took was a little creativity that enabled stories, particularly that of Frankenstein and the Wolfman, to entertain viewers through several films. In recent years the “Paranormal Activity” series, though repetitious with its found-footage gimmick, at least provides more tidbits as to why sweet Katie and her sister are targets of such a malevolent ghostly force. On the other hand, there was the abysmal attempt to cash in with another look at the Blair Witch Project.

“Sinister 2” is not a total failure, but it ends up just a rehash of the original, only with a different family as the victim. What was revealed in “Sinister” was that when these families were killed. one of the children ended up missing, and it turns out this missing child actually is the killer, filming the hideous murders. All of this apparently was at the bidding pf some pagan entity named Bughuul, who makes shadowy appearances in these snuff films.

The chain of murders continues because new families move into the homes where the previous murders took place.

So, as “Sinister 2” begins, Ex-Deputy So & So, who now is a private investigator — we’ll call him PI from now on — after not receiving any real useful advice from Father Rodriguez, has taken it upon himself to go and burn down the church and neighboring house where the last murders took place, hoping to end this string of horrific slaughters.

PI arrives at the supposedly uninhabited house with plans to burn it and the church down and discovers it has become a sanctuary for a woman and her two adolescent twin sons. The woman, Courtney Collins (Shannyn Sossamon, who plays Pandora in the series “Sleepy Hollow”), is trying to elude her abusive estranged husband, a well-to-do sleazebag who wants to regain custody of the boys.

Meanwhile, one of the twins, Dylan (Robert Daniel Sloan), suffers horrific nightmares and is visited each night by a ghost boy named Milo (Lucas Jade Zumann), who urges Dylan to go down to the basement with him and watch home movies, promising that if he does, the nightmares will end. Meanwhile, twin brother Zach (Dartanian Sloan, who along with sister Anastasia and Robert are triplets), is a bit peeved and jealous that Milo is dealing with Dylan and not him.

His arson plans thwarted, PI nevertheless sticks around, doing some more investigating, which of course provides an opportunity to have him poking around inside the church and experiencing some scary moments that turn out to be anything but deadly.

PI is not eager to stay at the house overnight, so seeks Courtney’s permission to come back the next day, which she grants. That turns out to be a blessing, as Courtney’s ex, Clint (Lea Coco), shows up with some cops but no real legal grounds to reclaim his sons. PI is able to call the bluff.

Meanwhile, Dylan reluctantly ventures down to the basement each night with Milo, where other ghostly children appear. They each have their own home movie, and these scenes in which the home movies are shown provide the creepiest and most effective moments in “Sinister 2.” Just like the original, these home movies initially show blissful family activities such as Christmas morning, renovating a kitchen, a church service, but then cut to scenes where hideous killings of the families are put to film for ghastly posterity. Never have scenes of the joy of opening gifts on Christmas morning been more foreboding.

The screenplay was written by Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, who collaborated on the original “Sinister,” and unfortunately they do not add anything more to the story, other than PI getting a call from a Dr. Stromberg (Tate Ellington), who informs PI that mysterious old CB transmissions emanating from Norway pretty much reveal what is already known about Bughuul and his soul-stealing shenanigans.

By the time PI makes it back to Courtney, she already has been served new documents by Clint, forcing her and the boys to move back into his house, thus lining them up for the next family slaughter.

The final scenes offer some genuine scares, as creepy ghost kids help track down the surviving family members inside the Collins house.

But in the end, when everything seems to calm down, the words of Father Rodriguez echo in the minds of us all: You cannot defeat evil, especially if there is a possibility of a “Sinister 3.”

Yes, we know. When it comes to some of the sub-genres of horror movies — the slashers, the paranormal/supernatural, vampires, science gone awry — the stories are basically the same. The elements needed to make each film distinctive include motivations, characterizations, locales and any other plot twist that needs to be plausible.

The demonic possession / exorcism movie is at a disadvantage because it is weighted down by a simple structure. Some poor soul is invaded by a satanic force — and the motivation for this is obvious and not complex — and it needs to be purged.

Another problem is that 41 years ago, “The Exorcist” covered this with such brilliance and terror nothing that followed could even remotely approach this film’s standing as one of the scariest horror pictures of all time.

Filmmakers continue to delve into this subject, however.

Mark Neveldine, who directed the two Jason Statham “Crank” movies under the name Neveldine, has helmed “The Vatican Tapes,” a film whose title seems to imply this is the ultimate demonic possession exploration.

It isn’t.

Co-written by Chris Morgan and Christopher Borrelli, based on a story by Borrelli and Michael C. Martin, “The Vatican Tapes” is another pale “Exorcist” wannabe with some of “The Omen” mixed in.

Somewhere it must be written that in all demonic possession films, the victim must be a young girl or woman — this perhaps motivated by a notion that an innocent looking person can really be terrifying when under the influence of a malevolent entity.

In “The Vatican Tapes,” the target of the soul-consumption project is a woman named Angela Holmes (Olivia Taylor Dudley from “Chernobyl Diaries”). She is a patient at a Catholic mental hospital in the United States, and a video of one of her therapy sessions gains the concerned attention of Vicar Imani (Djimon Hounsou) in Vatican City. He shows the video to Cardinal Bruun (Peter Andersson), specifically focusing on one point on the stream in which there is the usual visual static and distortion that when freeze-framed shows some scary shadow image that looks pretty intimidating.

The movie flashes back five months to when Angela was a happy young woman, living with her boyfriend Pete (John Patrick Amedori) and dealing with her military father, Col. Roger Holmes (Dougray Scott, the villain Sean Ambrose in “Mission Impossible II), who naturally thinks Pete is not good enough for his daughter.

Angela’s 24th birthday party is marred when she badly slices her finger while cutting the cake. She reluctantly goes to a nearby Catholic  hospital with Pete and her father, where they have a brief encounter with the hospital chaplain, Father Lozano (Michael Peña). The wound is tended to and Angela is given some medication to take upon being sent home.

But she soon is drinking a lot of water, claiming a dry throat, and one day has a frightening encounter with a raven that bites her. Soon her behavior becomes erratic and leads to an accident that puts her into a coma. After several weeks in which Angela shows no brain activity, Roger agrees to take her off life support. She goes into full arrest but a moment later comes back to life.

However, now Angela is even more unpredictable, which leads to her being admitted to the mental hospital. By now Father Lozano has taken an interest in her case and begins to witness incidents that cannot be attributed to any mental disorder.

This brings us back where the movie opened, with Cardinal Bruun, sharing Vicar Imani’s concerns, deciding to go to the United States to perform the exorcism. By that time, Angela has caused so much commotion at the mental hospital that she is being released to the care of her father.

The effectiveness of “The Exorcist” was largely attributed to the young innocence of Regan, played by Linda Blair, and as she became horribly disfigured and growled and played mind games and spewed vile words and green vomit, it was horrifying to witness such a ghastly transition.

Weighing down “The Vatican Tapes” is the bland characterization of Angela. Little time is devoted to fleshing out Angela pre-possession, and as close as she is supposed to be to her father (she never knew her mother), that relationship is never believably realized.

Dudley as Angela does execute some creepy scenes well, using an ominous and menacing expression, and her whispered recitations, delivered in some unknown language that have a chaotic effect on others, do induce chills.

The exorcism scenes are superbly staged, with Cardinal Bruun’s confidence diminishing by the minute and Father Lozano realizing they are seriously outmatched.

“The Vatican Tapes” tries to be an overpowering possession movie, but there are no distinguishing moments. It all has been put on film before, with much more chilling punch.

The downfall of “Creep” is that it reveals too much

Recently added to the Netflix lineup, “Creep” is a two-man project, a small film that has dark humor along with cringe-inducing and unnerving moments.

Written by Mark Duplass (most recently seen in “The Lazarus Effect”) and Patrick Brice and directed by Brice, “Creep” also stars just these two men under a point-of-view format.

Brice plays Aaron, a videographer who answers an online ad for a one-day job at a cabin in Crestline, a mountain town northeast of Los Angeles.

Upon arriving, it seems like nobody is in the cabin, but then Josef (Duplass) suddenly appears. Once inside, Josef tells Aaron what his job will be. Josef says that he is married and his wife is expecting a baby boy in a few months. However, Josef says he has an inoperable and terminal brain tumor and likely will die either before or shortly after his son is born. So he wants Aaron to videotape him all day in an effort to present a record Josef can leave to his son to let the boy know who his father was.

It seems a simple enough, if sad, assignment, although Aaron stupidly expresses no curiosity as to why Josef’s wife is not around.

Soon things start to get a little uncomfortable. Immediately, Josef wants Aaron to videotape him while he takes a bath with an imaginary baby, playing a “rub-a-dub” game that Josef says his father did with him when he was young.

It gets worse. Josef is fond of disappearing and then leaping out to scare Aaron. Josef also has a wolf mask he has named Peach Fuzz. Josef’s behavior swings from being bizarre to genuinely reflective and sad. As the day progresses, Aaron becomes more leery of Josef, suspecting other motives — possibly even intimate overtones — that has the videographer eager to leave later in the evening. But his car keys have disappeared.

Some cat-and-mouse games ensue between the two men and eventually Aaron manages to get away. But soon he realizes that Josef is nowhere near being done with him.

A problem with “Creep” is that Aaron ends up being the typical easy prey, lacking any common sense, making him a ripe target for Josef’s manipulations.

On the plus side, Duplass is captivating as Josef, in a creepy way. His actions are unpredictable yet at times seem to be brilliantly calculated.

Unfortunately, “Creep” unravels in the final moments as it reveals too much. The Brice/Duplass team had a small gem here in keeping things murky. Had they followed that plan and maintained some element of mystery, “Creep” would have had a lasting effect of a psychological thriller wherein the lack of resolution leaves a residue of uneasiness.

The found-footage/POV sub-genre of horror films, like the teen slasher movies of the 1970s-80s, will not fade away quietly. The “Paranormal Activity” franchise, which has sustained the strongest run in this structure of scary movies, has at least one more round to go. And while the found-footage/POV type of coverage has been used to explore spooky wooded areas (“The Blair Witch Project”), the crumbling of security in homes of middle-class families (“Paranormal Activity” series) and even witnessing the destruction of New York (“Cloverfield”), there seem to be other places it can crop up.

For its nerve-wracking story, “The Gallows” takes place in a venue that for some people was horrifying in real life — high school.

Co-written and co-directed by Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing, “The Gallows” also revisits a site that has been used before to spark jitters — an empty theater auditorium.

In 1993, a prop malfunction during a small-town high school’s stage production of a play titled “The Gallows” results in the tragic death of a student, Charlie, playing one of the lead roles. Now two decades later, as part of a tribute to the boy, the high school is about to stage that same play again.

The first 30 minutes of the movie are devoted to introducing and developing the main characters. Naturally the key person needs to be the one who constantly has to visually record everything, and fulfilling that role is Reese (Reese Mishler), by far the most obnoxious videographer ever depicted in this type of movie. His school work seems to be secondary to his obsessive need to have a his camera recording everything. He disrespects the drama department’s efforts at putting on the play, and he bullies the nerdy Stage Boy (Price T. Morgan).

Reese particularly channels his disdain toward Ryan (Ryan Shoos), picked to play the lead role that the doomed Charlie took on in 1993. Ryan has quit the football team to devote his energies toward “The Gallows,” but in rehearsals he is atrocious. Reese suspects that Ryan is only participating in the play to win the affections of Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown), the student playing the lead female role and the person who has been the driving force behind getting this play on stage.

Also on the periphery of all this is Reese’s gilrfriend Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford), one of the cheerleaders.

When Reese discovers that one of the back doors to the theater building is broken and cannot be locked, he hatches a plan he sees as a way of preventing Ryan from humiliating himself in the play. Reese proposes that they break into the theater later that night and destroy the props on the stage, thus forcing the play to be cancelled. He manages to talk the reluctant Ryan into going through with this by suggesting that Ryan could then comfort a distressed Pfeifer when she learns the play has been grounded.

The Cluff/Lofing writing team deserves kudos for coming up with this premise. It provides a plausible reason for these young people to sneak into the theater other than nonsensical mischief.

When the students finally arrive at the school at night, the tension level ratchets up. What makes or breaks movies of this type is how effectively the scary moments are delivered, along with the revelation of what is behind all of this terror.

Unfortunately, “The Gallows” at this point could be any other found-footage movie with its almost nausea-inducing shaky camera work that adds nothing new when it comes to the frightening moments. The standards are there: doors slamming and now locked, mysterious sounds of footsteps, shadows lurking, items suddenly disappearing, and dark, creepy rooms filled with clutter that produce scream-inducing imagery.

Much like “The Blair Witch Project,” the filmmakers present an ending that leaves the audience guessing as to what is really going on. This is a plus for “The Gallows” after the usual tiresome exercise of young people running around finding there is no escape.

“The Gallows” employs the gimmick of using the actors’ real names as their character names. This was done initially in “The Blair Witch Project’ as the marketing strategy of pretending Heather (Donohue), Josh (Leonard) and Michael (Williams) were not actors but real people who actually disappeared. Now, 16 years later, this is a device that is laughable.

Aside from the irritating behavior of Reese, so grating you might actually root for his demise, the rest of the characters, especially the young ladies, are barely memorable. This movie desperately needs some quiet moments like the dialogue of the three characters in “Blair Witch Project” that made viewers, if not totally liking them, at least identifying with them in certain situations.

Paul “Big Show” Wight as Victor and Dean Cain as Danvers are mortal enemies in “Vendetta.”

For those who like their action movies bloody and uncompromisingly brutal, “Vendetta” is worth every minute of their time.

In limited theatrical release but readily available on video on demand, “Vendetta” plays out superbly as a good guy vs. bad guy story, with a hero steadfast in determination and willing to take a beating to achieve his goals, against an imposing villain, often who has allies and all kinds of advantages.

Dean Cain, an actor with a wide array of roles but mostly known for playing Clark Kent/Superman in the TV series “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” (1993-97), is Mason Danvers, a tough police detective, who as “Vendetta” opens, arrests — with a lot of help — two brothers, Griffin Abbott (Aleks Paunovic) and Victor Abbott (Paul “Big Show” Wight), two hoods with an extensive record of crimes. Battered from a nasty fight with Victor, Danvers goes home to be nursed by his wife, Jocelyn (Kyra Zagorsky).

Three months later, Danvers is given the stunning news that because a key witness has “disappeared” in the Abbott case, both brothers have been set free.Victor, taking his arrest at the hands of Danvers personally, pays a visit to Jocelyn, and the result is an absolutely gut-wrenching attack. But in the process Victor is arrested again and sent to prison.

In the wake of this tragedy, Danvers is driven to a point he no longer will play it by the book. He commits a deadly crime, setting it up so that he is arrested and convicted. He is sent to Stonewall prison, where, of course, Victor is incarcerated.

The screenplay by Justin Shady presents prison life with all the dynamics seen in earlier movies about life in such institutions, complete with a warden, Snyder (Michael Eklund) with questionable and possibly corrupt ties, along with decent and hard-working prison guards and the crooked, sadistic prison personnel, and the ever-present prisoner hierarchy of one inmate at the top of the food chain, surrounded by loyal, nasty lieutenants (or hard-ass toadies).

Once in prison, Danvers learns quickly the top dog is Victor, who sends of couple of his goons to give Danvers a body-busting orientation on what life will be like in Stonewall.

The performances in “Vendetta” are marvelous. Cain’s Danvers can be a frustratingly impulsive character, throwing himself carelessly into the line of fire without thinking of the consequences yet can summon enough resourcefulness to do the things necessary to stay alive.

Wight is perfectly cast as Victor. A superstar in World Wrestling Entertainment, his is an imposing presence at seven feet tall and more than 400 pounds. Over the years he has performed in the wrestling ring mostly as a heel (bad guy) and has a sneer that can wilt any foe. Besides his physical intimidation, Wight also displays an adept ability to show exasperation as his lieutenants become antsy when Danvers starts gaining some ground.

Eklund is deliciously slimy and manipulative as Warden Snyder, putting a nice spin on the corrupt prison official. Also of note in the cast are Adrian Holmes (Drexel), Juan Riedinger (Booker), Lee Rano (R.B.) and Garfield Wilson (Dee) as Victor’s increasingly shrinking corps of enforcers; as well as Matthew MacCaull (Ben) as the sympathetic prison guard and Jonathan Walker as Lester and Dee Jay Jackson as Will, the guards with questionable work ethics.

The violence in “Vendetta” definitely deserves an R rating, and the cast really earned combat pay with all the vicious physical encounters.

All this spectacularly choreographed mayhem was directed under the firm leadership of Jen and Sylvia Soska. In this, only their fourth full-length movie as directors, the Soskas, also know as The Twisted Twins, expand their territory from horror to flat-out action. The twins, who recently directed another WWE star, Kane (Glenn Jacobs), in “See No Evil 2,” have a growing base of fans that appreciates the creativity and talent they have presented as directors and screenwriters in “Dead Hooker in a Trunk” and notably “American Mary,” the latter of which has seen enormous growth in popularity and recognition as a groundbreaking horror movie and likely could become a classic of the genre.

Being billed as “hell in a cell,” “Vendetta” actually takes its action all over Stonewall, from the dining hall to the laundry room, and of course to the exercise yard, where all hell really breaks loose. In the end, it meets all the demands of the discriminating hard core action movie aficionado.

When “Insidious: Chapter 2” (2013) wound down with the seeming resolution of the terrifying haunting problems of the Lambert family brought on by the ability of father Josh and son Dalton to astral-project in their sleep, there was an ominous epilogue that hinted of yet more trouble as a collateral effect of the Lambert case. Naturally, the assumption was that the next chapter in this series would address this.

Well, leave it to the writing-directing team of Leigh Whannell and James Wan to stray from the norm.

Instead of a continuation of the story, “Insidious: Chapter 3” is a prequel, focusing on the personal issues that haunted the gifted psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) in the years before she had to revisit the Lambert case.

The Whannell/Wan collaboration shifts gears here, with Whannell not only writing but directing as well — this being his directorial debut — while Wan serves as producer.

“Chapter 3” takes place a few years before the Lambert case, but it cannot be too far in the past, as laptop computers, Skype and mobile devices are very much a part of the culture in this story.

It begins when teenager Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott), on the verge of graduating from high school and setting sights on pursuing an acting career, goes to Elise’s house, seeking the woman’s help. Quinn’s mother has recently died of cancer and Quinn believes her mother is trying to communicate with her from the beyond.

Initially, Elise declines to help, saying she is no longer in the business of breaking through to the other side. But eventually she gives in, and to her horror she discovers it is not Quinn’s mother, but something more sinister at work, and strongly advises Quinn to just move on with her life.

Unfortunately, it is too late. Quinn, her father Sean (Dermot Mulroney) and younger brother Alex (Tate Berney), live in an apartment building that is the archetype structure where eerie spiritual shenanigans are cultivated. The floors creak, every door squeaks, the elevator is vintage slow.

Quinn is injured in an accident, making her predicament even worse, as she has no mobility. As creepy things begin to escalate, Quinn is at least lucky that Sean does not linger long with the skeptical parent stance often seen in these kinds of movies (“You were just having a dream,” “The noises are just the house settling,” etc.), and soon he is paying a visit to Elise. But once again Elise is reluctant to help. She is dealing with her own personal tragedy and a malevolent force that has hooked onto to her from a previous case. She does agree to visit Quinn and decides to conduct a seance that only solidifies her resolve to stop venturing into the spiritual world.

Desperate to find some help, Sean  heeds Alex’s suggestion they bring in Tucker and Specs (Angus Sampson and Whannell), two paranormal investigators who have become stars on the Internet.

But the technology they have at hand does not negate the fact they are not gifted like Elise.

Meanwhile, Elise meets with fellow spiritual expert Carl (Steve Coulter), who gives her a pep talk, and Elise realizes that if she is not willing to help people by using her gift, she really has nothing else to offer.

Just like all stories of the supernatural, the scary moments are designed to make the viewer jump, and there are teaser moments when a jolt is expected but does not occur. The only real hook is discovering what is behind the scary happenings. So once Elise resolves to help Quinn and break through to The Further, it is a matter of her finding out what is going on and how to combat it.

There really are no twists in the story, but watching Shaye as Elise is always a pleasure, especially when she shifts into overdrive and puts the smackdown on all these evil entities. Plus, we get to see the origination of the association between Elise and Tucker and Specs.

Whether or not the “Insidious” series will continue remains to be seen. Whannell has said in an interview for Rue Morgue magazine that nothing is in the works for a fourth chapter yet. For sure, however, Whannell and Wan have left the fans of this series with some teasers that will guarantee a captive audience should there be more “Insidious”creepiness.

An old house, a town with secrets and more supernatural chills in “We Are Still Here”

Another offering for horror fans that has recently been released and is available via video on demand is “We Are Still Here,” a movie with the familiar premise of people moving into a house that has a mysterious and deadly past.

Written and directed by Ted  Geoghegan, based on a concept by Richard Griffin, “We Are Still Here,” opens with a middle-aged couple, Anne (Barbara Crampton from “Re-Animator” and “You’re Next”) and Paul Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig) moving into a secluded house in the New England area as they try to regroup upon the death of their college-age son in an auto accident.

Despite setting up a new household, Anne is convinced of the spiritual presence of their son — a notion Paul dismisses.

The house is old and problems exist, including a strangely overheated basement. A few weeks into their residency, the Sacchettis are paid a visit by neighbors Dave and Cat McCabe (Monte Markham and Connie Neer), and soon Dave is telling them about the origination of the home, that it was built to be a mortuary and when it was discovered that the family running the mortuary was violating the trust of the community, they were driven away.

This is not an uplifting story and Dave soon apologizes for revealing it. Meanwhile, Cat seems spooked and submissive, but does manage to slip a note to the Sacchettis, urging them to leave.

Anne, still sensing the presence of her son, invites her friend May Lewis (Lisa Marie) and her drug-dabbling husband Jacob (Larry Fassenden) out to stay a weekend. May has done some seances and Anne hopes she might be able to summon the spirit of their son.

When the Lewises arrive, the two couples decide to go into the small nearby town for dinner and encounter a bar-restaurant full of suspicious people along with an undertone of hostility.

Meanwhile, the Lewis’ son Harry (Michael Patrick Nicholson) and his girlfriend Daniella (Kelsea Dakota) arrive at the house and rather than go into town they decide to wait at the house and engage in some intimate activity, which always riles up mischievous spirits and serial slashers.

By the time the couples return to the house, wondering what is it with the enigmatic townspeople, some bad things have occurred and are about to escalate.

“We Are Still Here” starts slow as Geoghegan establishes an ominous mood with several long shots of the snow-drenched and eerily silent outdoors around the house, complete with creepy looking trees barren of leaves. After a while these scenes, while effective, interrupt the rhythm of the storytelling.

The final 30 minutes or so of the movie really pick up the pace and enable the characters, particularly Anne and Paul, to elevate themselves above the grief stalking their lives. It is a refreshing jump-start to what had been bland characters. Up to that point only Jacob is a standout with his lingering hippy persona.

“We Are Still Here” requires patience but once the action picks up there are some terrifying and surprising moments that push all the right buttons and help make this movie an effective thriller.

Forty years ago, “Earthquake” hit theaters with its new gimmick called Sensurround, which were just huge speakers placed strategically in the movie houses to boom out the rumbling of a massive temblor. This accompanied scenes of what obviously were models of buildings collapsing and roads buckling and crumbling. In addition, there were silly side stories about the characters who then had to set aside personal issues and get down to the business of basic survival as Los Angeles came tumbling down.

Thankfully, special effects have come a long way since then, and because of advancements in CGI, panoramic views of death and destruction on a massive scale can be choreographed in spectacular ways, as have been seen in recent end-of-the-world movies like “The Day After Tomorrow” in 2004 and “2012” in 2009.

With that kind of technology at hand, why not revisit the earthquake theme, but not have it confined just to the L.A. or San Francisco area? Let’s include the whole state. So we are presented with “San Andreas,” named for the long fault line that cuts through California and is one all the experts say is capable of, and likely to unleash a massive quake registering 8-plus on the Richter scale.

Since the earthquake itself is the backbone of “San Andreas,” there is no need to spend extensive time developing the main characters. The script by Carlton Cuse, who has penned some episodes of “Bates Motel,” does have some groan-inducing lame dialog, but otherwise it jumps right into the action, featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Ray, a member of an L.A. fire department helicopter rescue unit.

In the opening minutes, Ray and his team conduct an adrenaline-rush rescue of a young woman from her car after an accident that puts her in a potentially fatal situation.

Then the movie segues over to the scientific part of the story. Paul Giamatti plays Lawrence, a professor at Cal Tech, who with colleague Kim Park (Will Yun Lee) believe they have discovered a way to accurately predict quakes. They go to Hoover Dam in Nevada, where some activity might indicate a pending temblor. The quake does occur but with drastically more intensity than they expected.

There is a pause in the action for obligatory exploration of Ray, the flawed hero, and here, Cuse employs familiar character backgrounds. The hero is forced into part-time parenthood via a broken marriage or too much dedication to work (such as Tommy Lee Jones’ Mike Roarke in “Volcano,” Dennis Quaid’s Jack Hall in “The Day After Tomorrow,” and more notably Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills in the “Taken” series). Ray is estranged from his wife Emma (Carla Gugino), and like Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) in “Twister,”  Mills in “Taken” and David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) in “Independence Day,” he has not yet emotionally processed the idea that his ex has moved on to another relationship.

The call of duty forces Ray to cancel plans to drive his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) up to San Francisco, where she is about to start college. She instead hitches a ride with her mother’s new boyfriend Daniel Riddick (Iaon Gruffud), the kind of guy who looks like he’ll wither when to going gets tough.

Meanwhile, a shaken Lawrence returns to Cal Tech and learns that the same data that were a precursor to the Hoover Dam shaker are now popping up on sensors all the way along the San Andreas fault line. He soon deduces that an event of never before experienced magnitude is about to occur in California.

In a nice piece of timing one can only see in movies, Ray is talking on his cell to Emma when the first big jolt hits in L.A., and she is on the top floor of a high rise in the downtown area. Ray dispenses with his professional duty and zips over in his chopper to rescue Emma.

Soon, the shaking has made its way up to San Francisco. Blake, who meets a young man from England, Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and his kid brother Ollie (Art Parkinson) while Daniel is conducting some business, finds herself with these two people in the aftermath of the quake in the northern part of the state. She manages to call Ray and let him know what happened and they set up a rendezvous point in the Bay area.

The story now bounces between the efforts of Ray and Emma to get up north, to Blake and her two friends as they encounter more hazards in Frisco, and to Lawrence and his colleagues at Cal Tech, who are now getting more readings to indicate the worst is yet to come and need to devise ways to get the word out even as the power grid collapses.

The script is excellent in presenting numerous ways people can face life-threatening situations and seemingly overwhelming odds even after the temblors end.

Director Brad Peyton (“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore”) keeps the action lively, with a few pauses here and there, mostly as Ray and Emma engage in some marriage counseling in between cheating death.

While Johnson is, well, The Rock, stoic and almost indestructible, both Gugino and Daddario portray Emma and Blake as tough, resourceful ladies, determined to survive.

“San Andreas” is what one would expect for a summer popcorn movie. The visuals are stunning and scary. And for those of us living in California, “San Andreas” carries special foreboding, because, unlike Godzilla, earthquakes are real.