Thriller
Rod Lott
When Meg (Allene Roberts, Union Station), the adopted daughter of wooden-legged farmer Morgan (the legendary Edward G. Robinson), convinces him to hire her platonic pal, Nath (Lon McAllister, The Story of Seabiscuit), at the staggering rate of 50 cents an hour, things look like a win-win for all parties.

Thriller
Rod Lott
All the way back from 1935, While the Patient Slept begins with a logo stating it's a Clue Club Picture. Was that a regular picture-show "thing"? The Clue Club? Because if it was, I would've been a faithful follower, just based upon this good-natured mystery, recently released by Warner Archive.

Thriller
Rod Lott
It's not often one sees the credit "completed by" in a film or TV series, but not many never-finished novels are even considered worthy of adapting to screen. However, most authors aren't the legendary Charles Dickens.

Horror
Rod Lott
Can director Darren Lynn Bousman survive in a post-Saw world? After the grating steampunk musical misfire Repo! The Genetic Opera, I would have said "no way," but my mindset has been reversed by Mother’s Day and, to a lesser degree, 11-11-11. Ironically, not only were both films denied anything beyond a blip of a theatrical release, but now — insult to injury — they have to compete against one another on home video.

Thriller
Rod Lott
As if Warner Archive hasn’t re-released enough murder mysteries on MOD DVD lately, here’s another helping, pairing 1949’s The House Across the Street and Homicide on one disc overflowing with film noir. I gladly made room for it.

Action
Rod Lott
Can Steven Soderbergh do a martial arts-fueled action thriller? That was rhetorical in a bear-crap way; the guy can do anything. Best known for Traffic and the Ocean's Eleven franchise, he's a director par excellence, even when the story goes to snuff in his experimental larks, like casting porn star Sasha Grey as the lead in 2009’s no-budget drama The Girlfriend Experience.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Two outcasts are better than one in Death and Cremation, a better-than-average indie thriller, thanks mainly to mood. Even the smallest of budgets can afford that, yet few think to invest in it.

Action
Rod Lott
After sitting out the 2009 prequel, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Kate Beckinsale and her skintight, black-leather outfit return for Underworld: Awakening, the fourth and likely not-final entry in the mindless but massively popular vampires-vs.-werewolves franchise. Also back? That omnipresent blue tint. Not so lucky? Scott Speedman.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Raquel Welch never quite landed on the A list, but not for a lack of trying. It's just that so many of her projects (Bedazzled, One Million Years B.C., Fathom, Myra Breckinridge, et al.) required little more of her than her assets. At least she shakes those with the best of them as a go-go girl on the go — and on the run — in 1969's Flareup, fresh from the MOD ovens of Warner Archive.

Thriller
Rod Lott
True to its title, The Aggression Scale begins quite aggressively: A woman just done with her daytime jog enters her home, whereupon a gunshot blasts her back out to her front yard. A hit man emerges and snaps a Polaroid for proof.