Seven travellers stranded in the Italian countryside accept the hospitality of a kindly castle lord, but what horror awaits them: the family has a curse on it that dooms the eldest daughter of each generation to become an agent of the devil, and guess who's coming home. After a striking opening scene (involving a Nazi officer in 1944 overseeing the birth of his child, which turns out to be. an accursed daughter!), this horror tale drags along at a glacial pace until the visitors settle in enough to take a little time out for sex, which serves as an appetiser to sadistic murders. The guests, ostensibly representative of the Seven Deadly Sins, die in appropriately thematic twists at first, though after gluttony, greed and lust the point gets stretched. This low-budget example of horrotica has its entertaining moments, an appropriately lurid style (courtesy of Belgian director Jean Brismee), and even an appearance by former French matinee idol Jean Servais (Beauty and the Beast). Included are trailers for this and three other Italian exploitation films and an extended introduction by British horror hostess Eileen Daly (which was actually recorded for a different film!), a black-leather Elvira with a whip and a penchant for kink that may not be to the tastes of all audiences. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

When it was announced that Tom Cruise would play the vampire Lestat in this adaptation of Anne Rice's bestselling novel, even Rice chimed in with a highly publicised objection. The author wisely and justifiably recanted her negative opinion when she saw Cruise's excellent performance, which perceptively addresses the pain and chronic melancholy that plagues anyone cursed with immortal bloodlust. Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst are equally good at maintaining the dark and brooding tone of Rice's novel. And in this rare mainstream project for a major studio, director Neil Jordan compensates for a lumbering plot by honouring the literate, Romantic qualities of Rice's screenplay. Considered a disappointment while being embraced by Rice's loyal followers, Interview with the Vampire is too slow to be a satisfying thriller, but it is definitely one of the most lavish, intelligent horror films ever made. -Jeff Shannon When it was announced that Tom Cruise would play the vampire Lestat in Interview with a Vampire, the film adaptation of Anne Rice's bestselling novel, even Rice chimed in with a highly publicised objection. The author wisely and justifiably recanted her negative opinion when she saw Cruise's excellent performance, which perceptively addresses the pain and chronic melancholy that plagues anyone cursed with immortal blood lust. Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst are equally good at maintaining the dark and brooding tone of Rice's novel. And in this rare mainstream project for a major studio, director Neil Jordan compensates for a lumbering plot by honouring the literate, Romantic qualities of Rice's screenplay. Considered a disappointment while being embraced by Rice's loyal followers, Interview is too slow to be a satisfying thriller, but it is definitely one of the most lavish, intelligent horror films ever made. [+]

You are now entering Interzone, William S Burroughs' phantasmagorical land of junk, paranoia and crawly things. Best travel advice: "Exterminate all rational thought". In David Cronenberg's superbly shot, unnerving warp on the Burroughs novel, Naked Lunch, the novelist himself becomes a main character (played in an implacable monotone by Peter Weller), with elements from Burroughs' life-including the shooting of his wife during a "William Tell" game, and bohemian friends Kerouac and Ginsberg-added to frame the book's wild visions. This is, ironically, a somewhat rational approach to an unfilmable book (and it makes a hair-curling double bill with Barton Fink, another look at writerly madness, with both films sharing Judy Davis). Cronenberg is a natural for oozing mugwumps and typewriters that turn into giant bugs, of course. But in the end, this is really his own vision of the artistic process, rather than Burroughs' hallucinatory descent into hell. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

While hardly a spiritual upgrade of the slasher film, this high-concept teen body-count thriller drops hints of The Sixth Sense into the smart-aleck sensibility of Scream. Helmed by X-Files veteran James Wong, who co-wrote the screenplay with long-time creative partner Glen Morgan, Final Destination is an often entertaining thriller marked by an unsettling sense of unease and scenes of eerie imagery. It suffers, however, from a schizophrenic tone and a frankly ludicrous premise. A high-school Cassandra, Alex Browning (Devon Sawa of Idle Hands), wakes from a pre-flight nightmare and panics when he's convinced the plane is doomed. His ruckus bumps seven passengers from the Paris-bound plane, which immediately explodes into a fireball on takeoff, but fate hasn't finished with these lucky few and, one by one, death claims them. Wong brings such a funereal tone to these early scenes of survivor's guilt and inevitable doom that the already far-fetched film threatens to veer into unplanned absurdity. Thankfully, the tale loosens up with a playful morgue humour: one of the victims winds up the splattered punch-line to a grim joke and elaborate Rube Goldbergesque chains of cause and effect become inspired spectacles of destruction. Final Destination is a pretty silly thriller when it takes itself seriously, and the filmmakers play fast and loose with their own rules of fate, but once they stick their tongues firmly in cheek, the film takes off with a screwy interpretation of the domino effect of doom. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.