With 2011 coming to a close, Parallel Universe looks at the year's geek movies

By Don Kaye
Special to MSN Movies

As 2011 draws to a close, it brings a lot of questions for fans of "geek" movies, the films that fall into the sci-fi, horror, fantasy, heightened action and comic book genres. From the mixed bag of success we saw in the past 12 months (both critically and financially), it seems as if the public is undecided on a lot of things: how many comic books heroes it wants to see, how much it really likes 3-D, and how far big stars and spectacular effects can go in making a film into a tentpole.

For example, what was one of the biggest success stories of the year? "Insidious," a little horror movie that cost less than $2 million and made more than $50 million, all because it did exactly what it set out to do: Scare the hell out of you without dismembering people at the same time. To be sure, some of our favorites of 2011 were not hits like that (or even hits at all), while some of the worst pictures of the year were. But with the exception of the eternally dumb "Pirates" and "Transformers" franchises, smarter and less "packaged" seemed the better way to go this year.

Nothing in 2011 came close to the anticipation or expected massiveness of the behemoths we face next year -- "The Dark Knight Rises," "The Amazing Spider-Man," "The Avengers" and "Prometheus" -- but when a geek film worked in 2011, it really worked. And when it didn't ... well, keep reading for our list of misses, along with the hits and "almosts" of 2011.

(20th Century Fox/Walt Disney Studios/Warner Bros.)