While the vast majority of fictional characters are on some sort of path to discovery, there certainly seems to be a lot more searching these days. From the grand cosmic queries of PROMETHEUS to the more personal probing of this summer’s horror offerings RED LIGHTS and THE AWAKENING, it seems the world’s frustration with the balance of science and spirituality, and our own searches within them, are becoming externalized more frequently.

The ’70s must have been a rough time to be a travel agent. Just as JAWS had millions hurriedly kiboshing their beach vacations and MIDNIGHT EXPRESS had people rethinking tours to exotic locales, the brutal and affecting DELIVERANCE would for years elicit the same hesitation about jaunting into the wilderness.

DEAD BITE belongs to a very small sub-subset of Asian horror in which rock/pop bands play themselves and fight zombies. If you liked WILD ZERO, chances are you’ll enjoy this one too.

A gorgeous, haunting exploration of youthful imagination, THE CAPTURED BIRD transports viewers back in time to their own early excavations of the dark. The eleven-minute short is the freshman outing from genre publishing icon Jovanka Vuckovic, who reportedly turned to her horror heroes for guidance at the project’s outset. In the end, just as she proved in ZOMBIES! AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE UNDEAD and with how she evolved Canada’s Rue Morgue magazine from fan rag to one of the most distinct voices in genre periodicals, THE CAPTURED BIRD is clearly the product of Vuckocic’s own vision. The results are stunning.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER is going to be a tough sell for the average viewer; the title alone is going to be a deterrent for many. Ultimately, this is a love-it-or-loathe-it type of adventure, and judging by the reaction at the Toronto press screening, those sentiments seem to be split down the middle. If you can commit to the absurdity of the idea, you’ll be in for one hell of a rip-roaring adventure that will not disappoint; if you can’t stomach the premise and let go of the obvious historical incongruity involving one of America’s most beloved historical figures, you may end up rejecting it.

Burgeoning filmmaker Axelle Carolyn showed a lyrical, controlled sense of cinema in her 2011 short film debut THE LAST POST. Now, the sometime actress, model and author has created another work of gentle, macabre craft in THE HALLOWEEN KID.

The early scenes of Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS serve as an eye-filling reminder of how rarely we get big, serious movies about space travel these days. After a string of films in which aliens have brought the fight to us (with decidedly mixed results), here’s one that honors the grandeur and potential terror of exploring “the final frontier.”