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Have you ever watched the advertisements for SyFy Saturday night movies and wondered, “Why aren’t the movies they show ever as cool, clever, and fun as the promos?” If so, Midnight Syndicate films has exactly what you’ve been looking for.

A young woman (Sean Serino) obsessed with contacting her dead brother accidentally comes into possession of a strange amulet shaped like a scarab. Unknown to her and her friends, the amulet is being sought by a vampire hunter (Jason Carter) who stole it from a vampire lord (Andrew Divoff.) While the vampire lord attempts to enlist the help of the local alpha vamp (Tom Savini) and his minions to find the artifact, the young woman and her friends stumble upon the amulet’s secret: the wearer can command the dead.

With a script that is clearly from a horror fan writing for horror fans, The Dead Matter follows in the footsteps of such films as Idle Hands, The Evil Dead series, and most recently Trick ‘r Treat. Zombies and vampires appear with no explanation and no need for introduction, launching into the story of ordinary folks who quickly discover “what’s the worst that could happen” when dabbling in the occult. The dialogue is peppered with self-awareness while the plot twists with surprising imagination, using what you think you know to set up a scare and having fun honoring the genre instead of making fun of it.

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Would you believe this is a remake of The Big Chill but with all the parts played by Adam Sandler’s famous and/or infamous friends? It isn’t, but could it have been?

The funeral of a basketball coach reunites the stars of his championship-winning middle school team, now all grown up (Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider.) Whether they have gone on to predictable careers or become family men, the five former friends and teammates spend a few days at a rented cottage together (with their families) remembering what they wanted to be and lamenting the choices they’ve made in their lives. Ultimately, they discover why they become such good friends to begin with while periodically regressing back to their former juvenile behaviors.

If you believe the trailers, this movie should have been a smile-a-minute laugh-fest, like Meatballs or an old John Candy movie ending with winning some local competition against a bully family. Nearly all of those moments are used up in the trailers, because the film really isn’t merely a comedy. Drawing from the same well as 50 First Dates and more recently Funny People, Grown Ups is refreshingly introspective while actually being bogged down by the same sight gags shown in the advertising. It’s like a Happy Madison alumni reunion special except that someone filmed it, brought friends pretending to be family, and took fake names just to mix it up.

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Good start, so-so middle, ho-hum ending.

When a spy named Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) goes rogue, he targets a random stranger, June (Cameron Diaz), in an airport to sneak an item through security. After initially being told the flight was booked full, June is allowed onto the plane but finds herself wondering why there is only Roy and a handful of passengers on board. With no one else to talk to, June is easily taken in by Roy’s good looks and charming manner, sensing an intensity that she believes is directed towards her. After Roy subsequently kills everyone on board and crash lands the plane in the middle of nowhere, it slowly starts to sink in that June may not have have been so lucky getting onto the plane…

For every female who’s ever been infatuated with Tom Cruise (we’re talking to you, Katie Holmes), here’s your love letter. An unassuming woman from anywhere (who just happens to look like Cameron Diaz) who’s never previously met Mr. Risky Business becomes suddenly and hopelessly infatuated with him once she gets past how dangerous it is to be anywhere near him. Not only is this what the plot boils down to, it’s actually hinges on it in a late second act revelation that throws suspension of disbelief right out the window and into the street like a sackful of unwanted kittens. Did this go wrong in the editing room, or was it always this bad of an idea?

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Angelina Jolie again steps up to the action star plate and easily hits a triple.

At a cover company for the CIA, a Russian defector calling himself Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) walks in off the street claiming to have important information. Agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) confronts the man, trying to determine the validity of what he has to say. Orlov spins a tale of conspiracy and cold war machinations, ending with the claim that the Russian president will be killed by a covert sleeper agent… named Evelyn Salt. Knowing protocol would prevent her from doing so, Salt attempts to contact her husband to ensure his safety since her name is in the open, but when the attempt fails, Salt uses her considerable skills to exit the building before being captured. Fellow agent and friend Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) is willing to give Salt the benefit of the doubt, but Agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has a higher concern: has a sleeper agent just been activated?

With more than a hat tip to the Jason Bourne film series, Salt burns like an old school cold war thriller with a role that Angelina Jolie embodies naturally. Full of chases, fast fights, gun play, and car crunching, the question of Salt’s motivations drive the story while Jolie makes it look incredibly easy. Practical special effects are the order of the day, and enlisting a fictional sect of Russian patriots looking to restore their lost world superpower glory makes for a fresh but familiar villain to struggle against. While all of the above will get audience involved with Salt, it’s the revelation and risks the script was willing to take that make it memorable.

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Overlong yet awesome. What else did you expect from a Christopher Nolan flick?

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a very special kind of thief: he steals from your mind. A billionaire industrialist (Ken Watanabe) hires Cobb to do just the opposite, planting the seed of an idea, an inception. Cobb’s specialized team includes an architect who can design the environment of a dream (Ellen Page), a forger who can assume the identity of people a target knows (Tom Hardy), and a handful of specialists who know how to get around inside a dream. In addition to setting up when the mission will take place, the group must also plan their escape from the dream as well as create multiple layers of engagement to obscure their intentions from the target (Cillian Murphy.) Unfortunately, Cobb himself carries secrets that could not only thwart the mission but possibly doom them all to being unable to wake ever again.

Moviegoers have experienced this kind of dream invasion concept before: Dreamscape, Total Recall, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and pretty much the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series to name a few. Writer/director Christopher Nolan starts with these ideas and creates his own set of rules while weaving multiple story lines in and around them, all to an engaging effect. Add to this the possibility that someone might be trained or instructed to ward off such an attack and that one of the team members has a few psychological issues of their own, and the stage is set for plenty of drama. Although the middle and final act both leave room for a bit of trimming that could have moved the film along a little quicker, there’s a lot of story to tell, and Nolan manages to balance it all while making you care about the characters it’s happening to.

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