Best Horror Movies of 2011: Theatrical

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is an attractive "soft R" remake of the 1973 made-for-TV monster movie that provides moderate, well-paced entertainment value despite its frustrating flaws.

Despite being short on scares, The Rite is refreshingly restrained and cerebral in its approach to the well-worn cinematic exorcism scenario, featuring the always fun-to-watch Anthony Hopkins.

Although it can't compare to the 1971 original in terms of artistry and impact, the more low-brow Straw Dogs remake still manages to attain crowd-pleasing popcorn flick status about the little guy standing up to the bully.

Final Destination 5 is the best entry in the Final Destination franchise since the original, with a restored sense of morbid fun and even a couple of twists to liven up the otherwise predictable plot that follows the series convention of Death coming to claim survivors of a disaster.

Critically derided and lumped in with the Twilight movies (in part because director Catherine Hardwicke helmed Twilight), Red Riding Hood easily outpaces those more popular films in terms of melding horror with romance, with more effective werewolf design, less treacly melodrama, a superior cast and a lush fairy tale environment reminiscent of Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves.

Some fans of the John Carpenter's The Thing had a hard time accepting this prequel -- perhaps because it's overly reverential, perhaps because it uses CGI instead of the real-world effects that made the 1982 film so memorable, perhaps because it's just not the 1982 film -- but judged on its own merits, the 2011 version of The Thing is tense, fast-paced and full of grisly monster mayhem.

Paranormal Activity 3 is perhaps marginally inferior to the first two films in the series, but it still delivers plenty of scares and a plot that fills in the gaps from the other movies.

Contagion is a tense, star-studded pandemic thriller that, like a good fright flick, gets under your skin, making you keenly aware of your own habits (How often do I touch my face again?) and slightly paranoid about those of the people around you.

Director J.J. Abrams flexes his Spielbergian chops in Super 8, crafting a likeable, family-friendly slice of nostalgia that plays like E.T. meets The Goonies meets Real Genius meets Gremlins meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The fact that David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo differs negligibly from the original Swedish film shouldn't detract from the fact that it's a well-acted mystery that is picturesque, edgy, undulating and fascinating.

Insidious is a jump-out-of-your-skin-scary ghost story that takes the haunted house genre to the next level and earns its spot as the most terrifying movie of the year without resorting to gratuitous gore.