Matinee idols Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt indulge their dark sides in this adaptation of the Anne Rice novel, and both surprisingly manage to save face. Pitt provides the emotional anchor as an 18th-century plantation owner whose wife dies in childbirth. He seeks relief by accepting the “black gift” from the vampire Lestat (Cruise), a

Lost Souls takes The Exorcist a step further by having a crime reporter (Ben Chaplin) in danger of being possessed by Satan himself. Winona Ryder also is on hand as an exorcism survivor. As the directorial debut of Janusz Kaminski, longtime cinematographer for Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List), this has a lot of

A wry and cerebral horror movie from director Roman Polanski, The Ninth Gate is surprisingly gripping until its devilishly silly ending. Johnny Depp, delightfully eccentric as usual, stars as a rare book appraiser who gets caught up in the world of demonic texts, but even his engaging presence can’t save the film from literally and

As a sequel, this horror flick inherently contains the mythical back story that the flimsy first film lacked, but it still skimps on scares. A few good frights – including an opening daylight attack in a cornfield by the scarecrow or gargoyle or whatever the series’ monster is supposed to be – can’t make up