Here’s what’s new on the big screen in Athens this weekend:
OUIJA (PG-13; showtimes): What a weak week-before-Halloween movie slate! Another PG-13 horror flick, Ouija stars Olivia Cooke, who was good in the so-so The Quiet Ones and helps make “Bates Motel” worth checking into, as one of a group of teens haunted by whatever evil spirit they woke with their Ouija board. I imagine theirs is not the mass-market, Parker Brothers variety. Director Stiles White and his cowriter Juliet Snowden were also responsible for the unfrightening The Possession.
JOHN WICK (R; showtimes): Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A hitman comes out of retirement for revenge. But this movie stars Keanu Reeves; that’s unusual, right? Nevertheless, the trailers and cast (Willem Dafoe, Michael Nyqvist, Dean Winters, Adrianne Palicki, John Leguizamo, Lance Reddick and Ian F’in McShane) seem to promise a little something different and have me torn between complete disinterest and minor compulsion.
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (R; showtimes) Those interested in more adult horror than Ouija has to offer should head to Ciné for another well-selected “Schlocktoberfest” entry. Writer-director John Landis’s blackly comic horror film travels through the English countryside with a couple of American tourists (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne). After being attacked by a werewolf the locals deny exists, the survivor is haunted by nightmares of hunting and the ghosts of his mauled victims. Six-time Academy Award winner and 10-time nominee Rick Baker won his first Best Makeup statuette for this film’s utterly believable (for its time) transformation.
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