Off Beat

The Saw franchise may be more efficient in logging a body count, but The House of the Devil is the kind of film that reminds you how cool it is to settle back and just let the dread soak in.

"Lars von Trier isn't going to talk to a lot of press." Yeah, yeah; yadda-yadda. But just because he isn't talking to us doesn't mean we can't talk about him, particularly about his childhood.

A TV writer tries his hand at a feature film. His friend reads the script, thinks it's an ungodly mess of muddled symbolism and Freud 101 anxieties. "Be honest," the writer says.

Michael Almereyda is no stranger to toying with film form. His latest documentary, the deceptively free-form Paradise, is an affecting -- dare I say, paradisiacal -- experience.