A young woman, Hana, is passed out, naked, in a bath full of crimson water—her wrists slit and a bloody razor blade resting on edge of the tub.  She is found by Sonia (Cydne Schulte), who goes for help.  As Sonia walks through the house, she discovers a dead man hanging from the ceiling and another body in a bedroom.  This is the striking opening scene of Curse of La Llorona, a film written and directed by Terrence Williams.

La Llorona (which is Spanish for "the Weeping Lady") is a Mexican folk tale about a woman that has drowned her children yet seeks them from beyond the grave, killing anyone who crosses her.  Curse of La Llorona is part three of the "La Llorona" series created by Williams.

Since this flick only runs about an hour, a lot happens quickly. Hana’s troubled family moves into her house to care for her. Hana’s uncle Daniel (Antonio Royuela) and his wife, Gabby (Anne Stinnett), are informed that Hana (Mary Sanchez) is alive but she’s violent and uncommunicative. Sonia cryptically tells Gabby that good and bad are struggling inside Hana and warns that the house will not accept them.

In her 1987 film, Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow pulls off a neat trick.  She combines a western with a romantic fable and a violent, bloody vampire tale, and she makes it work.

Written by Bigelow and Eric Red (best known for Body Parts and the original version of The Hitcher), Near Dark is the story of two star-crossed teen lovers, Caleb and Mae.  Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) is a good ol’ boy from Oklahoma, a roper and a rancher.  Mae (Jenny Wright) is a sweet young thing that also happens to be a vampire.  They meet one night and are so taken with each other that Mae almost doesn’t bite Caleb…almost.  After a passionate goodbye kiss, she decides to nip him—the life of a vampire can get mighty lonely and she thinks she’s found her soul mate.  As usual, trouble appears in the form of Mae’s "family."  What’s not usual is that they kidnap Caleb and take him to see if he’ll fit in.

For a late entry into the slasher genre, Night Visitor doesn’t do a bad job of twisting a little convention to create an entertaining, if mostly bloodless, little movie.

Derek Rydall plays Billy, a spunky boy-who-cried-wolf type who likes to tell tall tales to just about anybody who will listen.  This has made him the nemesis of one of his teachers, Mr. Zachary Willard (Allen Garfield).  It seems like Mr. Zachary’s life long dream is get Billy expelled from high school.  Meanwhile, Billy’s truth telling skills are put to the test when a beautiful call girl named Lisa Grace (Shannon Tweed in a nice performance) moves in next door.  Slightly flirtatious but fairly harmless, she becomes the object of Billy’s obsession.  Not that anyone believes a real-life hooker has moved in.

One night Billy invites his two best buds over to spy on her, but hours pass and nothing happens, so they leave.  Billy falls asleep only to be awakened by Lisa’s cries for help.  He runs to her aid but is stopped short when he sees her being murdered by Mr. Zachary!  He reports it to the police (one of whom is played by Richard Roundtree), but even upon first meeting, they find him to be sort of incredulous.  Now Billy finds himself in a fairly precarious situation, since Mr. Zachary knows Billy can finger him as the killer.  This would certainly be bad for Mr. Zachary and his satanic cult!  Well, it’s a cult if you count two members as such!  Mr. Zachary is aided by his Idiot Man Child brother, Stanley (Michael J. Pollard), in an attempt to rid the world of ‘evil’ woman (aka prostitutes) with ritualistic killings.  Desperate, Billy turns towards his deceased father’s partner (they were cops), the burnt out Ronald Devereaux (Elliot Gould in a sleepwalking turn) for help.

Fact and fiction has always intermingled within the confines of storytelling in an effort to make the story more alluring to the reader, viewer, etc… But some stories are so harrowing and lurid enough that fictional accounts don’t need to come into play.  One would think that of the infamous Manson Murders, which claimed the life of the beautiful and very pregnant actress Sharon Tate, among others.  The murders and aftermath were so horrific that it has become a part of pop culture and it hurled Charles Manson to fame, whether we agree with it or not.  But there’s still one more story to be told about that infamous evening.  House at the End of the Drive is co-writer David Oman’s alleged account of the ghosts which still haunt the remnants of the estate, and that night.  Oman, who lives on Cielo Drive where the murders occurred, attests to ghostly apparitions and spooky going-ons including the sound of footsteps when no one else is home.  After further research with the help of parapsychologist Barry Taff (who researched the Entity case), eerie orbs and erratic electromagnetic forces have been found inside and beneath the house.

From Oman’s curious findings, comes this movie, loosely based on his own experiences.  The names have been changed and the crime is now called the DeWitt Murders, but this is more of a metaphysical account of what happens after a life has been cut too short.