HOLLYWOOD ENGLISH MOVIE WORLD

If Continuum, the second feature length, made-for-DVD film spun off from the long-running Stargate SG-1 television series, marks the end of this wing of the franchise--and it is hardly a certainty, given the show’s Lazarus-like history--then all involved, including the viewer, should be well satisfied. Continuum commingles all the elements that have made Stargate so eminently watchable over the years, including engaging characters and storyline, plenty of action, impressive sets, and first-rate special effects. This time the whole gang is on hand, as the most recent SG-1 contigent (Ben Browder as fearless leader Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell, Amanda Tapping as the brainy Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, Christopher Judge as the implacable alien Teal’c, Michael Shanks as the ever-resourceful Dr. Daniel Jackson, and Claudia Black as the irreverent, motor-mouthed Vala) is joined by characters whose roles had been reduced or eliminated along the way

A lean, briskly paced and exceptionally creepy thriller, The Strangers earns its scares the old-fashioned way: through atmosphere, sound design, and a simple yet undeniably upsetting central premise that allows for maximum tension throughout its running time. Attractive young lovers Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are already having a bad day--she's turned down his marriage proposal--before a knock on the door in the middle of the night announces a full-fledged siege on their remote vacation home by a trio of masked assailants. The film's first third delivers the most consistent shivers as the visitors make their presence and intentions known to Tyler; the second half grows more frantic and bloody before a gruesome finale that may leave viewers either rattled to their core or bothered by its empty nihilism

The feverish Hellboy II: The Golden Army is a very busy sequel that might have looked unhinged in the hands of a less visionary director than Guillermo del Toro. Ron Perlman returns as Hellboy, aka "Red," the Dark Horse Comics demon-hero with roots in the mythical world but personal ties in the human realm. Still working, as he was in Hellboy, for a secret department of the federal government that deals (as in "Men In Black") with forces of the fantastic, Red and his colleagues take on a royal elf (Luke Goss) determined to smash a longtime truce between mankind and the forces of magic. Meanwhile, Red's relationship with girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), who can burst into flames at will, is going through a rocky stage observed by Red's fishy friend Abe (Doug Jones), himself struck by love in this film. Del Toro brilliantly integrates the ordinary and extraordinary, diving into an extended scene set in a troll market barely hidden behind the façade of typical city streets. He also unleashes a forest monster that devastates an urban neighborhood, but then--interestingly--brings a luminous beauty to the same area as the creature (an "elemental") succumbs to a terrible death. Del Toro's art direction proves masterful, too, in a climactic battle set in a clockworks-like stronghold tucked away in rugged Irish landscape. But it's really the juxtaposition of visual marvels with not-so-unusual relationship issues that gives Hellboy II a certain jaunty appeal hard to find in other superhero movies


In the trinity of modern horror films, there's the father (Michael Myers of Halloween), the son (Jason of Friday the 13th fame, a knockoff), and the unholy spirit, Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. The spectral man who haunted the nightmares of unsuspecting teenagers with deadly consequences, Freddy (as played by Robert Englund) was a truly frightening bogeyman and icon for the '80s. Unlike the hockey-masked Jason, who dispatched horny teenagers with mechanical and monotonous ease (he never talked, never took off his mask), Freddy was a truly creative and diabolical villain, with a sadistic and blackly funny personality. The hallmarks of the Nightmare on Elm Street series were imaginatively gruesome suspense pieces, set in the overactive imaginations of the teen victims. The first film of the series, Wes Craven's truly intelligent and scary film, was so hugely successful it begat not one, not two, but six more sequels, each pretty much diluting the originality and horror of its predecesor. (Horror fans will fondly remember Drew Barrymore's assertion in Scream that the first Nightmare film was great but all the rest sucked.) Still, there's fun to be had in the remaining films in the series, seeing as a number of aspiring filmmakers cut their teeth on the continuing saga of Freddy. Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) and Chuck Russell (The Mask) worked on the third installment, Dream Warriors (starring a young Patricia Arquette), and Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) came to prominence with the ingeniously macabre fourth film, The Dream Master, coscripted by Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential). Craven and original star Heather Langenkamp did return for the last film, New Nightmare, which presaged the tongue-in-cheek postmodernism of the Scream films and resharpened Freddy's ability to scare.