Weeping angels at the cemetary.

At the movies: The House of The Devil.

When college sophomore Samantha (Jocelin Donahue, working a distinctively Lynn Lowry-ish vibe) decides to flee her messy dorm room and inconsiderately promiscuous roomate, she finds herself caught between a rock and a hard place. A great apartment is within reach, with a nurturing landlady (horror icon Dee Wallace) and space for studying and living and establishing herself as an independent woman.

But a looming $300 deposit makes things almost insurmountable for Samantha- until she answers an ad for a babysitter for Mr. & Mrs. Ulman (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov). They're wealthy ($400 for just a few hours), they're weird (apparently able to derive phone numbers without being told), and they're just delighted to have Samantha to their isolated, ornate manse so they can make the big astronomic event- a complete lunar eclipse.

As the film is called The House of the Devil, you would be right to assume that something nefarious is involved. Something diabolical, even. But be sure, this is not an evil house; it is a house to which evil has come. The meticulous joys of this film aren't in its pagan rituals, bloodenings, or SRAS-style underlying fears. The House of The Devil is a film that feels of the 80s, but never explicitly says so.

Donahue's Samantha is a truly great character and a great performance, suitable to stand amongst Heather Langenkamp, Kimberly Beck, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ashley Laurence as great 80s horror heroines. She's pragmatic, but also has a problem with being impetuous, proving relatable for just about anyone. She even turns on the faucets in bathrooms so no one can hear her cry.

You can jettison your irony at the door to this House, as its slow-steeping spell works best in that part of the brain that understands the dangers inherent in every locked door, in every lie told through a smile.

Indie goddess Greta Gerwig, as Samantha's best friend Megan, is just marvelous- a rich girl with Farrah hair and an appetite for tasty morsels. A marvelous character, she, and like the rest of the stellar supporting cast, helping ground the more concrete aspects of the film in an indeterminate-early 80s milieu that's never jokey or obvious. It's a place out of sync with space and time, this movie, and it wears its deliberate pacing and cautionary heart with both affection and trepidation.

Currently, The House of The Devil is playing theatrically in selected markets throughout the country, though it is available nationwide through Magnet/Magnolia Pictures' VOD program. If you're in Nashville, though, it's coming to the Belcourt Theatre from November 9th through 13th, and it's $1.50 cheaper than VODing it in your own home. Get your 35mm experience on; you'll be glad you did.

At the movies: Paranormal Activity.

Since she was eight years old, Katie has been haunted by an unseeable force. Now, in a bizarre mix of genuine concern and antiquated codes of macho foolishness, her day trader boyfriend Micah has decided to setup a mildly elaborate recording system to try and confirm visual and audible evidence of this mystery that has plagued his beloved for years. But what they capture is something not easily explainable, and what they find is something beyond logic and reason.

Here’s another case of a no-budget independent shocker that relies on offscreen sound and the power of suggestion to yield bigtime shock and even bigger dollar signs. It’s The Blair Witch Project all over again, as an insistent and well-aimed marketing campaign has turned a tiny tape of terror into a multimillion dollar event.

It’s all the industry and media can talk about, and it hasn’t even opened wide across the country yet. Hollywood dreams about this kind of success, and audiences, as always, respond to a good scare.

This film doesn't have Blair Witch's remarkable ability to imbue the widest of open spaces with the most pervasive kind of dread, nor does it have any real iconography or particular style. The former film required a vivid imagination and a sense of the overwhelming possibilities of the dark, whereas Paranormal Activity seems just a little too conscious of what an audience these days requires.

But regardless of its flaws; and there are quite a few, all coming in to play whenever the filmmakers decide to inject some narrative (e.g. psychic, Ouija board, theory and expository history of demonology), Paranormal Activity is a must-see for anyone who wants to be terrified.

All you need to know is that some truly scary stuff happens herein; things that are scary because they work on the imagination, and scary because when they do get physical and crazy, it feels unreal- not in the way that CG has desensitized us to almost all fantastic imagery, but unreal in the way that triggers the hair on the back of your neck, that triggers the heart rate, and the cold sweats, and the parts of the brain where nightmares live.