Thriller
Rod Lott
A Destructive Manner
8 p.m. Saturday
The Paramount OKC
701 W. Sheridan
theparamountokc.com
517-0787
$3

Thriller
Rod Lott
Just a decade after starring in Sleuth, Michael Caine returned to similar fare in 1982's Deathtrap. Both are crafty mysteries with a bare minimum of characters and even fewer settings, but many twists to leave viewers with spinning heads.

Action
Rod Lott
By sheer coincidence, Osombie arrived on my desk the same day I screened Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar-worthy depiction about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Osombie begins where Zero ends: with the American military raid on bin Laden's compound on May 2, 2011. Whereas Zero puts bullets in the al-Qaeda leader's body, Osombie lets him inject himself with an aggressive pathogen so that, once he washes up on the Arabian Sea, he's a full-fledged zombie.

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
Not based on Connie Willis' seminal sci-fi novel of the same name, Doomsday Book is preoccupied not with time travel, but the world's end. Telling three separate stories, the Korean film comes from acclaimed directors Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil) and Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel). As with all anthologies, results vary; ultimately, this one ends up as two-thirds great.

Television series
Rod Lott
Currently riding high on the 007 tidal wave known as Skyfall, Daniel Craig enjoys one of his earliest roles in 1997’s The Ice House, a two-part, three-hour BBC murder mystery adapted from Minette Walters’ novel. Luckily for Craig’s legion of fans, he does not play the dead body found putrid, nude and devoured from the abdomen down.

Horror
Rod Lott
My problem with most found-footage films is that there's not much to them. Most can be described legitimately as an hour of buildup for one scene of payoff. When you shorten the stories, however, as is done in the horror anthology V/H/S, you have a handful of payoffs without all that pesky incidental padding.

Horror
Rod Lott
“Paired” — ahem — thematically across six discs are 12 feature films hosted by Elvira, the Mistress of the Dark, on her Mega Movie Marathon. Far from the horror hostess’ only DVD in circulation, this collection offers tremendous value by compiling several previously released double features into one set.

Horror
Rod Lott
Aside from re-creating two or three minor scenes, Silent Night in no way could be called a true remake of 1984's extremely controversial Silent Night, Deadly Night. Flicks about a killer Santa Claus have existed before and since; if not for the value of a brand-name, this could be just another.

Thriller
Rod Lott
I should have listened to Ron Backer. In his new book, Mystery Movie Series of 1930s Hollywood, he more or less warns would-be audiences away from trying any of the early 1930s’ half-dozen movies based on Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason character.

Eclectic
Rod Lott

Horror
Rod Lott

Horror
Rod Lott
Says a concerned mother in the opening scene, "If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times: Stay away from vans. Only bad people own vans." Truer words, ne'er spoken, especially in the case of Creep Van, an independently funded flick of horror from the heart.

Horror
Rod Lott
For being A Vampire's Tale, the story sure is dominated by an antiquities dealer named Jacob (Doug Bradley, the Pinhead of the Hellraiser series). With his hateful stepdaughter and newly pregnant wife, Jacob moves to the country to live on a farm.

Action
Rod Lott
While not fully lucid, Painted Skin: The Resurrection excels from a standpoint of visuals. Whether that’s worth an entire viewing depends on your tolerance for fantastical whimsy.

Television series
Rod Lott
Four years ago, cable remade the perfectly fine ’70s sci-fi thriller The Andromeda Strain, based upon Michael Crichton’s thriller, but needlessly doubled the running time, thereby cutting its effectiveness in half.