'Sea Beast,' 'Kaidan,' 'My Bloody Roommates'

By Peter Martin

Time to dust off some old favorites -- or finally get around to watching anything you haven't seen -- because this week's new horror offerings are mighty thin. How thin? How about a Sci-Fi Channel original movie as (possibly) the most palatable release?

Sea Beast (formerly known as Troglodyte) has a cover that might remind you of Joe Dante's Piranha, but the movie itself? Not so much. " "An amphibious man-eating monster from the deepest dregs of the ocean arrives in a perpetually overcast fishing village and goes on a killing spree with its recently hatched little ones," says Dread Central. "Never a total bore yet never anything more than what it is, which isn't much." Corin Nemec stars as a boat captain / local pariah. The perky Miriam McDonald plays his daughter; she spent years toiling away on TV's Degrassi: The Next Generation, then took off her top for the otherwise forgettable Poison Ivy: The Secret Society. And now this debacle. I think she needs a new agent.

Kaidan features Japanese director Hideo Nakata (the original Ring and Dark Water) at the helm in the retelling of a 19th century ghost story. "Nakata has made what would be hailed as a classic, if it had been made in 1957. Which is not a slam - quite," wrote Mark Schilling in The Japan Times. "Nakata knows how to deliver jolts, even if you can see them coming a mile away." So if you're in the mood for an old-fashioned ghost story, this could fit the bill.



My Bloody Roommates is the new title for a Korean film that's also been called D-Day, the third in a series of horror flicks produced by Ahn Byung Ki (Phone). This one concentrates on four roommates at a girls school for troubled teens. Also in this series: Hidden Floor, which takes on a Korean superstition about the number "4," following a mother and young daughter who move into a new building. These could be rental picks for more adventurous souls.

Dead by Dawn 2: The Return is my pick for laziest title of the week. Couldn't they have moved up the deadline a little or suggested the sequel might be a little different: Dead by Dawn 2: Midnight Calling, or even Dead by Dawn 2: Kill the Paperboy? I never saw the original -- teens get munched on by cottage dweller -- so I can't say I'm eager for this installment.