Are You in the House Alone? (1978) A teenage girl (Kathleen Beller) begins receiving threatening notes and phone calls from a stalker after she starts dating the popular guy in school. When her concerns are dismissed by friends and teachers her defenses are lowered and the secret admirer moves from calls to physical attacks. Not the slasher movie the title makes it sound like but more of an After School special dealing with rape and victim blaming, and while the mature themes are interesting this is too stuck in its formulaic TV-movie rhythms and fills most of the runtime with mundane family squabbles and the love lives of teenagers (who cares?). A good cast (including a young Dennis Quaid) helps, but only just. C
Dark Mountain (2013) Stop me if you’ve heard this one: three filmmakers venture into woodsy terrain to make a documentary about an apparently haunted section of land and are never heard from again. Super generic in terms of found footage story structure and character development (several scenes are lifted right out of The Blair Witch Project) and with a sloppy, inconclusive mythology that builds to a frustratingly vague climax. C–
The Empty Man (2020) Terrific adaptation of the graphic novel about a retired cop (James Badge Dale) investigating the disappearance of his neighbor’s daughter (Sasha Frolova) and discovers that she may be part of a doomsday cult that worships an otherworldly entity known as the Empty Man, which can be summoned forth to destroy lives. Overlooked upon its initial release, this is a good film with a well-crafted screenplay (by director David Prior), tightly written characters, and a dark, unsettling atmosphere that gets under your skin, especially during the creepy first 20 minutes. Only its unnecessarily long 137 minutes hinders the movie of its full potential. B+