Essay Films, 1974: Fran and Miriam are two beautiful bisexual vampires who roam the English countryside looking for prey. They lure their victims back to their opulent estate for orgies of sex and bloodsucking. All goes according to plan until a young vacationing couple, John and Harriet, decide to park their camper near the castle for a few days.

Rated R: Though she exudes a definite animal charisma and solidly commanding presence, surrounding Carano with such a high-power boys club (there is not one other female character in the whole show) only serves to crisply define the emptiness of the space she’s supposed to inhabit. She delivers her few perfunctory lines like she’s pounding a sandbag, and, just as she repeatedly makes human ThighMasters out of her costars, she squeezes every bit of life out of their performances, as well.

Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment, 1988: Moral crusaders of the ’80s hated horror and heavy metal in equal measure, and you’d think producers of the time would have seized on this notion with aplomb, but the combination of metal and horror is remarkably rare. It’s rarer still to find these films on modern video formats.

Rated PG-13: In the winter, studios populate theaters with big, serious awards-contenders and misfit (usually mediocre) flicks they never got around to releasing earlier in the year. “The Artist” straddles the line between the two camps—it’s already racked up some awards (including honors at Cannes and a few Golden Globes), but it’s also an alien visitor to Planet Multiplex. Where are the crazy CG effects? How come the cute dog isn’t saying something sassy or pooping on the hero? A mostly silent, black-and-white film, it features real actors fervently, joyfully acting, and only a few special effects.

Central Films, 1989: Based on Susan Hill’s popular 1983 novel, the atmosphere of post-Edwardian England (staged with typical British excellence in costume and scenic design) is clammy and dank, even in the “cheerful” London scenes.

Rated R: John LeCarré’s famous 1974 spy novel, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” wasn’t written as a period piece, but it seems necessary to treat it that way now. LeCarré himself had worked for British intelligence for years before he quit to become a writer, and though his novels are fiction, they’re steeped in the sort of veracity that could only come from actually living through the Cold War inside the cold heart of MI5 and MI6.

Twentieth Century Fox, 1976: There’s something inherently creepy about cursed children. Sure, evil is generally a creepy phenomenon, but especially when personified in the form of an outwardly innocent little boy or girl. See young Regan’s head ratcheting around in “The Exorcist,” or little Danny croaking “red rum” in “The Shining,” or wee Gage wielding a scalpel in “Pet Sematary.”

Rated PG: One of the key elements that may have enamored readers around the world to the adventures of Tintin—a plucky boy journalist who fought corruption, solved mysteries and chased adventure in a Belgian comic series for more than half of the 20th century—was how well it balanced complexity of story with accessibility of style. Tintin, in both character and form, was drawn with bold, precise lines, subtle colors and no shading whatsoever. He subsequently became a wonderfully blank slate for followers to imprint themselves onto, step into his shoes, and actively engage in the adventures of imagination in which he was so often embroiled.

Filmove Studio Barrandov, 1970: Along with Polanski’s “The Fearless Vampire Killers” (1967) and Neil Jordan’s “The Company of Wolves” (1984), this is one of those rare horror films that doubles as a fairy tale.

Rated R: Over the years, David Fincher has shown himself to be a director of risk, invention and vision, often taking on projects of surprising, and sometimes confounding, subject matter. Risk doesn’t always equal success, however. For every “Fight Club” there’s a “Panic Room”; for each “Zodiac,” there’s a “The Game.”

Indústria Cinematográfica Apolo, 1964:Coffin Joe is an undertaker in a rural Brazilian town who is obsessed with two things: atheism and immortality.

“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” versus “Sherlock” (BBC One)

While the viewing public goes back to see a sequel because we liked the original and are interested in seeing the story and characters carried on in a similar vein, into something new and surprising and even better, filmmakers instead treat sequels like some sort of victory lap, a madcap reunion party of all the people who made the first movie, and as a reward they got money to make a second one and they’re all so happy they show up drunk or high and just throw something together that looks like it might have been fun to make, but hoo boy it sure doesn’t make much sense.

Gaumont Studios, 1959: In many respects, this film is not good, and yet it’s worth spending the 88 minutes to watch it. Fronju, who never garnered any serious respect as a filmmaker, understood the power of the medium better than many superior directors.

Anyone who’s taken a family vacation in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region is bound to harbor enduring memories, whether it was 50 years ago or just last summer. A new documentary shows how the region has changed and how it’s stayed the same over the decades, with time-lapse images of scenery, landmarks and more.

Rated R: Clooney trades his suave confidence for confusion and pain. He also gets to be funny, not in the cartoonish way he uses when cast in Coen Brothers films, but in an understated, affable way. His scenes with Woodley are precise moments of a father and daughter struggling to forge at first an uneasy alliance and, later, an actual relationship.

RKO Pictures, 1945: The Anatomy Act, allowing for the legal dissection of cadavers for medical training, was not passed until 1832. This film, clearly inspired by the Burke & Hare West Port murders, takes place in Edinburgh a year earlier. Boris Karloff, as Gray the cabman and corpse salesman, is magnificent, oily and reptilian, and the cheerful concentration of his good manners soaked in greed and sheer evil.

rated PG: No one with a hint of love in their hearts could want to dislike a madcap, song ’n’ dance infused escapade of talking frogs, stand-up bears and bug-eyed monsters with an itch to entertain. It was, no doubt, the goal of the latest Muppet feature’s creative team to do justice to the memory of Jim Henson and his wild little bunch of beasties. Their adoration of the man’s work is right on the screen, as is their apprehension of getting his recipe wrong. Many have called Henson a genius, and whether you agree with that or not is between you and your own heart, but that’s a lot to live up to.

Full Moon Pictures, 1999: Directly following the events of “Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge,” an aged Andre Toulon, the titular Puppet Master, is hiding in an abandoned building with his living dolls during WWII.

RKO Pictures, 1984: Nobody does tough guys like Walter Hill. Even when he frames his tough guys in an anachronistic setting full of elaborate rock ’n’ roll musical numbers, he still manages to make them tough guys. “Streets of Fire” was supposed to be a huge blockbuster feature in 1984, but it suffered the unfortunate fate of being released only a week prior to “Ghostbusters” and sunk like a rock in the box office. That's a shame.

rated PG: “Hugo,” made for film lovers, by film lovers, is a breed of cinema becoming more endangered by the week, one that encourages curiosity, rewards participation, and absolutely earns the right to be seen on the biggest screen you can get to, with as many friends and family you can bring along.

Rated R: Early in Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar,” we learn that there’s history, and then there’s history as told by J. Edgar Hoover. As played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Hoover is a man whose obsession with fact and truth ends when the subject is himself. The film opens with Hoover dictating a biography of his career to a junior FBI agent. The goal, he says, is to write something that clearly defines the heroes and villains of history.

Memorial-SAM Films, 1973: Young coffee salesman Mick Travis (McDowell) inherits a huge assignment for territory in the north of England and takes off to make his fortune. Along the way, he is seduced by women, mistakenly captured as a spy by the government, beds the daughter of a millionaire magnate, rises to the top and crashes to the bottom. Near the end, he auditions for a film role and is asked by the director to smile. Mick insists adamantly there is nothing to smile about. He is slapped hard across the face with the script. He smiles.

PBS walks softy and carries a big stick. When considering great contemporary television, it’s easy to forget all about them, even though their stations have been bringing excellent and diverse shows to us for decades. It shouldn’t be a surprise, however, since the big stick, the secret weapon they’ve been swinging for years, is none other than the BBC, a giant which is arguably the source of the greatest television in the world.

CJ Entertainment, 2009: A devout and selfless Korean priest volunteers to help test a vaccine for a deadly virus.