I am finally quasi back to my routine horror reviews, those that span from Wes Craven masterpieces to z-movies, the least being more likely.

There is one important thing that these horrifically horrible horrors have taught me: how to spot a cliché, a guide to what makes boring imitation a genre trope.

Because let’s face it, these new horror wanna-be are fortunately and un-, becoming standard just like Dario Argento and the nightmare monsters like Jason and Freddy were back in the day. Now I’m not saying anything about the quality, very few modern (or post-modern, nu-modern maybe) can about remotely be associated with the very word quality, even if in conjuncture with other words like “poor” or “lack ok”; but I have to say, this is precisely what I love about them.

From many comes the cliché, from few good ones that use the clichés the trope is born. Hence forth new stuff can come up (I incidentally have high hopes for the upcoming jew-ish inspired The Possession).

For this week’s “bad” horror we have:

the rift, horror, meaning horrifically bad: crackling bones, unevenly moving specters, the ever-present dark hallway where a quivering figure in the distance stumbles against the wall, a mad doctor, a vicious ghost girl, an over-the-top black guy and/or girl, the slutty one, the cheating player, the pure girlfriend: it wants desperately to remind of Scream, but all it does is get maybe in the ballpark of Scary Movie.

Airborne, a good low-budget british production, suspenseful enough and quite funny.

Alien Raiders, fun fun fun, splattery, alienish set in the most american of settings: the small town local supermarket.

V/H/S, about which one thing only can be said: oh look another hand-held reality horror. I could say that maybe the time for this kind of filmmaking is past, but it seems to be flourishing and spreading to other genres.

The Tall Man, we and presumably the producers and writers don’t know if this wanted to be a horror, a psychological thriller or just a psycho-case. It has a grand total of two surprise moments, both desperately downplayed.

The Pact, the good old pointless sunday horror, love. A tale of sisters, cursed houses, mediums and serial killers and the occasional actual scare.

The Monitor, the oddly refreshing depression of Swedenland, courtesy of Noomi Rapace (it’s actually Norwegian, same diff).

We wait..