Televised horror is officially bankable again. Now that the genre’s very own serial drama THE WALKING DEAD has set ratings records, how long will it be before TV and Internet viewers are treated to similar gory antics, only this time swaddled in the heartwarming familiarity of the sitcom format? THE CHAINSAW SALLY SHOW is a prescient stab at making just that.

THE LAST EXORCISM was one of the more pleasant surprises of 2010, a year in which horror seemed to alternate between overproduced, overwrought exercises and low-key stories that seemed to stretch an opening act to feature-length. THE LAST EXORCISM straddled the two approaches, resulting in a compelling dramatic allegory that doesn’t forget the entertainment value of a gratuitous mutilation.

Despite a healthy array of mustaches, serial killer/true crime films are hardly ever very intriguing. Mostly relegated to DTV, the subgenre likes to boast of getting into the minds of mass murderers but more frequently comes across formulaic and mediocre, and while the latest, DEAR MR. GACY (available now from Anchor Bay), is shrouded in positive buzz, we have to ask ourselves, does "better than expected" necessarily equal good?

Plausibility was never a major issue for me. I welcome the silly, the fantastic and the ridiculous with open arms. In horror/comedy,  however, it's often something of a necessity. Granted, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE UNDEAD isn't very horrific (and isn't trying to be), but still, in tales where relatable folk collide with unimaginable circumstance, you need first  to buy said relatable folk and their actions and reactions to both the real world and walking nightmares. ROSENCRANTZ never hops this hurdle and stumbles over many more in the process.

Coming to DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Paul W.S. Anderson’s RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE continues the story from the previous entry, EXTINCTION. This time, Alice (Milla Jovovich, who kicks ass with aplomb) travels from Tokyo to Alaska to LA in her ongoing mission to destroy the evil Umbrella Corporation and the T-virus-bred zombies that have overrun the world.

I’d be lying if I told you I’ve never experienced a period of academic overextension at some point or another. In this regard, the predicament Dana (Lydia Chandler) faces in DISMAL (on DVD from Cinema Epoch) provided a kind of instant sympathy. The class in which she’s stuck, and that she can’t stand or care to invest in, is Biology, and the option of extra credit becomes something of a desperate necessity. The movie, then, could be a forewarning about the perils of procrastination, with some pertinent circumstances. But for now, I’ll turn off my imagination (as the movie commands us) and get to telling what actually happens.

FAMILY PROPERTY begins with a farmer telling his son, “If anything ever happens to me, you’re in charge of this property. And do not let anybody whatsoever come on this property. If they do, kill ‘em!” Then the farmer is gunned down by the police in a bloodless shootout in which the law enforcement is represented entirely by offscreen gunshots.