Top Shop Movies

Prompted to rescue ten-year-old Lillith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland) from her parents after allegations of abuse suggest that the child is not safe in her own home, kind-hearted social worker Emily Jenkins (Renée Zellweger) discovers to her horror that the situation is far deadlier than she ever suspected. Ian McShane and Bradley Cooper also star in the thriller from Antibodies director Christian Alvart. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

This satirical murder mystery pits a woman who is the epitome of glamour (played by Haruko Wanibuchi) against a clever murderer during a holiday stay at a strange ghostly mansion. Seven young women, who have chosen as nicknames the brand names of much-advertised consumer products, begin to disappear in a decidedly suspicious manner. Are they fashion victims? How else can one explain the eerie coordination between their pastel outfits and the pastels of the rooms in which they appear? It is up to the heroine -- whose every screen appearance is heralded by special lighting, gentle breezes, and a soft camera focus -- to find out what is going on. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Sahara director Breck Eisner teams with screenwriters Ray Wright (Pulse) and Scott Kosar (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) to give George A. Romero's underrated 1973 shocker a shiny new makeover in this update starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. Perform a Google search on "small-town America," and eventually you'll stumble across Ogden Marsh, a picturesque hamlet situated a safe distance from the nearest big city, and full of friendly faces. The citizens of Ogden Marsh are happy, albeit unremarkable people, but they're about to discover just how fragile their warm slice of the American dream really is. When a mysterious toxin transforms the locals into murderous maniacs, it's up to Sheriff David Dutton (Olyphant) to find out why a man who was once an upstanding citizen would attempt to massacre the local youth baseball team, and a caring father would burn his beloved family alive. Within hours the town has descended into total chaos, and the government has ordered it quarantined. Anyone who attempts to escape will be shot on sight, whether they're infected or not. Realizing that their only hope for survival is to fight through the madness that has consumed their once-quiet town, Sheriff Dutton, his pregnant wife, Judy (Mitchell), his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson), and frightened medical center assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker) wage an epic struggle to discover the source of this malevolent scourge while fending off their infected friends and neighbors. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" -- or, rather, a homicidal boy in Stanley Kubrick's eerie 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel. With wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) in tow, frustrated writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker at the opulently ominous, mountain-locked Overlook Hotel so that he can write in peace. Before the Overlook is vacated for the Torrances, the manager (Barry Nelson) informs Jack that a previous caretaker went crazy and slaughtered his family; Jack thinks it's no problem, but Danny's "shining" hints otherwise. Settling into their routine, Danny cruises through the empty corridors on his Big Wheel and plays in the topiary maze with Wendy, while Jack sets up shop in a cavernous lounge with strict orders not to be disturbed. Danny's alter ego, "Tony," however, starts warning of "redrum" as Danny is plagued by more blood-soaked visions of the past, and a blocked Jack starts visiting the hotel bar for a few visions of his own. Frightened by her husband's behavior and Danny's visit to the forbidding Room 237, Wendy soon discovers what Jack has really been doing in his study all day, and what the hotel has done to Jack. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Best remembered for containing the film debut of phenomenally popular comedian of the early '90s, Jim Carrey, Once Bitten is a horror comedy that chronicles the attempts of a bloodthirsty female vampire living in modern day Los Angeles to find the three male virgins she needs every year to stay alive and young-looking. If she cannot do it by Halloween, she will surely die. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The survivor of a vicious gang rape turns the tables on her attackers in this remake of director Meir Zarchi's notorious 1978 horror classic. In order to seek inspiration for her next book, urbanite author Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler) retreats to a secluded cabin in the woods. Little does Jennifer realize that she's just caught the attention of some particularly depraved locals, and her peaceful retreat is about to become a living hell. At first the sadistic intruders attempt to frighten Jennifer by breaking into her cabin, but then the attack gets out of hand. Desperate to escape after being badly brutalized, Jennifer throws herself into the river and allows her body to be carried away by the rapids. When her attackers fail to locate her corpse, they assume she is dead and return to their normal lives. But Jennifer isn't dead, and she doesn't forgive. Her attackers will pay for what they did, and nothing they say or do can prevent her from savaging them in the worst way imaginable before she sends them to hell screaming. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The sequel to the low-budget blockbuster Paranormal Activity takes place a few months before the events of the first film. Katie (Katie Featherston), the much put-upon leading lady in the original, has a sister living in an upscale Los Angeles suburb named Kristi (Sprague Grayden). Kristi has a new baby son, Hunter; a likable lug of a husband named Daniel (Brian Boland), who owns several fast-food joints; a teenage stepdaughter from her hubby's first marriage, Ali (Molly Ephraim); and a large, friendly dog. As the family gets used to the new arrival, strange noises are heard late at night and when they come home from an outing, they discover the house has been trashed, even though none of their valuables have been stolen. Daniel responds by installing a security system and a network of surveillance cameras, though that doesn't stop the noises or the Latino housekeeper's insistence that spirits lurk in the home. When Katie and her boyfriend, Micah (Micah Sloat), stop by for a visit, they discuss the strange goings-on with Kristi; the women of the house believe supernatural forces are at work, while the men find that notion ridiculous. That doesn't last long, as the spirits get noisier and angrier, especially when Ali begins doing some research on the subject, and before long the safety of the household is being threatened on several fronts, possibly due to some dirty dealings in the family's distant past. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

John Ajvide Lindqvist's celebrated vampire novel makes the leap to the big screen once again with the second feature adaptation in so many years (Tomas Alfredson's critically acclaimed 2008 hit Let the Right One In, being the first). The sensitive target of vicious bullying at school, 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a social misfit from a broken home. By day Owen dreams about laying waste to his classroom tormentors; by night his attentions turn to his reclusive neighbors in their austere apartment complex. One evening, as Owen takes out his pent-up aggressions on a tree, his new neighbor Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz) appears over his shoulder. A young girl wise beyond her years, Abby just moved in next door to Owen with her stoic caretaker (Richard Jenkins), who seems to harbor a sinister secret. Compelled by Abby's apparent imperviousness to the harsh winter elements, her frail disposition, and the fact that she's nowhere to be found before the sun falls, Owen senses a kindred soul, and strikes up a friendship with the girl, despite her repeated attempts to maintain an emotional distance. Simultaneously, their community grows vigilant following a series of vicious murders, and Abby's caretaker vanishes without a trace. Later, as Abby begins to grow vulnerable, her bond with Owen strengthens. By the time Owen begins to suspect that his evasive new friend is something other than human, it starts to seem as if Abby could use a good friend after all. Given that his bullies are growing more emboldened by the day, so too could Owen. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Haute Tension and Hills Have Eyes director Alexandre Aja pays homage to the films that made him fall in love with the horror genre by helming this comedic remake of director Joe Dante's 1978 Jaws parody. Lake Victoria may look peaceful, but beneath the placid waters of this painterly lake lurks a deadly menace. A powerful underwater tremor has released scores of man-eating prehistoric fish into the waters, and now it's up to a group of unlikely heroes to band together and defeat the razor-toothed predators. With time running out and the aquatic carnivores taking over, one brave heroine (Elisabeth Shue) will risk everything to save the lake and prevent her family from becoming fish food. Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames, Jerry O'Connell, and Adam Scott star in the Dimension Films production. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Police searching for some bloodthirsty criminals instead find themselves battling the walking dead in this action-packed horror vehicle from France. Franck Jimenez (Aurelien Recoing) is a Parisian police officer dealing with the death of his partner, Mathias Rivoallan. Jimenez suspects that Rivoallan was murdered by a band of ruthless gangsters led by the Markudis Brothers, Adewale (Eriq Ebouaney) and Bola (Doudou Masta), who operate out of a decaying housing project on the outskirts of town. Rivoallan's wife is also convinced the Murkudis pulled the trigger, and so Jimenez brings together a handful of fellow cops to enact their own personal justice against the mobsters. Jimenez plans a raid on the Markudis' headquarters with the help of Aurore (Claude Perron), a female officer who'd had an affair with Rivoallan, and two other cops, Ouessem (Jean-Pierre Martins) and Tony (Antoine Oppenheim). However, when the cops launch their vigilante raid, they met with a response they never anticipated -- a pack of ravenous zombies has laid claim to the apartment block, and avenging their fallen partner takes a backseat to saving their own lives. La Horde (aka The Horde) was the first feature film from directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher; European cult horror auteur Xavier Gens was one of the producers. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This enormously controversial psychodrama-cum-horror film from Danish enfant terrible Lars von Trier charts the degeneration of a marriage into apocalyptic violence, chaos, and insanity following an unthinkable domestic tragedy. The film opens with a prologue. While they make love in their apartment on a snowy winter afternoon, a husband and wife known only as "He" and "She" (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) fail to keep an eye on their young toddler. In a horrific turn of events, the child wanders over to an open window, entranced by the snow cascading down, and falls two stories to his death. Von Trier then divides the remainder of the film into four chapters, beginning with "Grief." In that segment, the woman finishes a month's hospitalization, and accuses her husband of apathy over the child's death, but proceeds to take responsibility for it herself; he calmly and rationally guides her through this process. In the second segment, "Pain," she confesses to him that she's most terrified of their property in the forest, because she spent time with her son there over the preceding summer; as a form of therapy, he takes her to that locale on a wilderness retreat. She appears to grow more calm and rational over their first days in that milieu. Yet the recovery, it seems, was only illusory, and the subsequent two chapters, "Despair (Gynocide)" and "The Three Beggars," depict the woman's shocking and abrupt regression into unbridled insanity, culminating with grotesque sexual violence against herself, gruesome acts of destruction against her husband, and an apocalyptic climax. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The undead are on the march in bowling alley, though they aren't aware of what's happening to them in this ambitious blend of horror and comedy. Military intelligence forces are attempting to formulate a drug that will turn ordinary soldiers into invincible killing machines, but their latest batch of the stuff has far too many unpleasant side effects, and the green slime is sent out with the Army's trash. However, by accident the stuff is shipped to a bowling alley in a dot-on-the-highway town, where sweet but un-ambitious Timmy (Michael Grant Terry) moons over half-bright Cindy (Betsy Beutler) and smart-mouthed Mike (Matthew Davis) swaps insults with former flame Vanessa (Juliana Robinson). Assuming the bilious goo is some sort of desert treat, the denizens of the bowl-o-rama wolf it down and soon turn into drooling flesh-hungry zombies. However, one of the unusual effects of the drug is that those using it are unaware of its impact, so Timmy, Cindy, Mike and Vanessa are quite puzzled as others flee in terror at the sight of them. Ahh!Zombies!! (aka Wasting Away) was the first feature from director and co-screenwriter Matthew Kohnen. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi