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An over-the-top horror flick that--despite the tantalizing mystery that sets the story in motion--is nearly undone by all its loose ends, unanswered questions, murky motives, and abrupt, lackluster conclusion. When seventeen local grade schoolers flee their homes in the wee hours of the morning--2:15 AM--and are never seen again, the only kid left in their class is Alex Lilly, a timid boy who may know something about what happened but stubbornly refuses to talk. Did he have something to do with it? If he didn't, then who? Was it his teacher, an idealistic young woman more invested in the lives of her students than her by-the-book principal likes, and whom the parents of the missing children, in need of a scapegoat, have gone so far as to brand a witch? It's a terrific set-up with lots of promise, and as the film offers us glimpses into the lives of some of the movie's main players--mostly via a series of interlocking (and, I'll admit, occasionally confusing) vignettes--we're left to wonder exactly what did happen, and where the whole eerie thing is going. I predicted, correctly, that the screenplay would eventually take a sharp left turn--a la Zach Cregger's earlier "Barbarian"--and veer off in equally unexpected directions, and when the villain was finally introduced about halfway through and all kinds of hell began to break loose, I knew I was in for (lacking a better name for it) a sort of "Barbarian II." (One thing about Cregger: he sure knows how to make his chief evildoers wildly unattractive.) The violence increases, the dial on the old gore-o-meter starts to spin out of control (some scenes are truly stomach-churning), and even the comedy is turned up a notch--that is, if you like cringeworthy, pitch-black humor. (I do--sometimes.) But although the main question is answered (what happened to the children? THIS is what happened), so many more questions aren't dealt with, at all. Where did the villain come from? Why did they launch their campaign of terror in the first place? And couldn't Cregger, after leading us down that blood-soaked garden path, have come up with a more satisfying ending? At least "Barbarian"--the first half of which I liked a lot, the second half of which I didn't care for at all--made a bizarre kind of sense. One way to describe "Weapons": horror just for horror's sake. Call it good--it's certainly tense and unnerving--but disappointing.

Fans of anthology television--"The Twilight Zone," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"--may get a kick out of this Dan Curtis-directed sequel to his earlier "Trilogy of Terror." In this one, we watch a young man restore a 1926 roadster to its former glory, take it for a spin, and promptly go back in time; a worried husband try to save his wife from the clutches of an unseen vampire; and a grieving mom turn to black magic to bring her little boy back to life. The first one is lighthearted and sentimental, the second a bit darker, and the third--by far the best and most chilling of the lot--darker still. The acting is fine, but no one watches a movie like this for the Juilliard-caliber performances; they watch it for the special effects (this movie has a few, although they're strictly low budget) and jump scares, and to see how each of the stories plays out. I know I did, but I've always loved a short, tight, how-on-earth-is-it-all-gonna-end "Twilight Zone" type of tale, anyway. (Not that "Dead of Night" is anywhere close to TZ--or AH--standards.) Hardly a great way to spend an hour or so, but not a terrible one, either. Whether you're a lover of soft and fuzzy spookfests or something a good deal darker, "Dead of Night" is (mostly) worth checking out.

A charming book has been turned into an equally charming movie. The club of the title is comprised of a group of older adults in a senior living community--four in all--who have decided to spice up their humdrum lives by solving some of the murder cases that have stymied the local constabulary for years. As the story begins, in fact, they're looking into one such cold case already; but when a hot case--a much hotter one--falls into their laps quite by accident, they can't resist the chance to prove their mettle by solving that one, too. (The victim, it seems, was someone they all knew--though not, perhaps, nearly as well as they thought.) "The Thursday Murder Club" is one of those movie mysteries in which the story itself takes a back seat to the cast that brings it to life; there are worse ways to spend your time than by watching revered old pros like Helen Mirren & Company bounce lines off each other with consummate skill. It's funny, diabolically clever--ultimately (and happily) the answers to all their questions make perfect sense, an absolute requirement for a successful whodunit--and, especially toward the end, it turns touching and even heartbreaking. Senior citizens have a lot to offer, the film is saying, especially if they're as resourceful and unwilling to sit on their keisters as this brave bunch. Based on the novel by Richard Osment, and I can't wait till the next book in the series is adapted to the screen. Sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy.