It's been a curious year for horror movies. There have been a lot of them, with nearly a new horror-thriller opening each week in the first several months of 2007. But with the exception of this summer's 1408 and last spring's Disturbia, nearly all of them have ended up a major bust - Hostel 2, The Messengers, The Hills Have Eyes 2, The Hitcher, Captivity, Zodiac, etc.

Who knows what awaits the latest offerings, Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween and the latest from Saw director James Wan: the man-on-a-vengeance-mission thriller Death Sentence. It's interesting, though, to see Wan, who got the whole 'torture porn' ball rolling with the first Saw in 2004, try to spread his wings. While the premise -- Kevin Bacon as a family man gunning for the punk gang members who murdered his son -- may include some squeamish visuals, it probably won't be as over-the-top violent as Saw icon Jigsaw's usual exploits.

Check out the Death Sentence trailer here.


Death Sentence



The Saw movie-makers already tried to turn a corner earlier this year with the atmospheric ghost story Dead Silence, but that film failed to hit it big based on the filmmakers' name alone.

Death Sentence may not work either. But in a year where the axiom 'gore is more' has finally hit a roadblock, it's good to see the originators of the trend branching out. If it doesn't work, Saw IV (with original collaborators Wan and Leigh Wannell still onboard as executive producers) still opens October 26. Despite the genre's performance this year, the latest installment's success seems as guaranteed as the holiday that follows it.