Horror rises from the tomb: A horror renaissance seemed far
away at the beginning of 2009, with only tepid remakes of "My Bloody Valentine" and "Friday the 13th" at your local cineplex. But then the
strangest thing began to happen: Good stuff began to come out. "Drag Me to Hell ... more," director Sam Raimi's excellent return to his horror roots, was
criminally ignored at the box office. A smattering of fine indie releases such
as "Splinter," "Donkey Punch," "Seventh Moon" and the chilling "Pontypool" started trickling out either on DVD or through
Video On-Demand. And, finally, we had Oren Peli's $11,000 "Paranormal Activity," which actually frightened you,
something most modern horror films have forgotten how to do. With "Paranormal"
earning more than $100 million and "Saw VI" sinking quickly, 2009 not only saw horror's corpse
claw its way out of the grave, but look pretty good doing it.
