Autumn has fallen and it’s time once more to celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear. Rainestorm finishes its horror trilogy and goes to the well one last time to highlight 31 days of spooky scares that season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

Hex cast: 2011

The charm: The Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of Scream movies. The one that really shouldn’t have been made. It’s a pity because the story is ripe for parody after eleven years of audiences being fed warmed-up leftovers as fresh meat. It’s a remake that skewers remakes, which isn’t as ironic as the filmmakers intended. At this point, we have to wonder what the characters are so scared of, having survived and presumably learned what to expect after encountering so many killers with the same M.O. The plot is a mess. Just try reading it. The scares are virtually absent. The characters, for the most part, are empty shells for whom we feel nothing. Mary McDonnell’s demise, in particular, is hollow. With all this, however, it’s hard to deny its attention to the state of horror movies in the preceding decade. As a commentary on Hollywood’s creative vacuum, Scream 4 is more of an example than a commentary.

Focal point: Hayden Panatierre is adorably confident as the creatively-coiffed Kirby.

Entrancing trivia: With four installments, this landmarks the Scream franchise as being one of the only horror series to have its main characters return for all its sequels.

Speak the words: “You forgot the first rule of remakes, Jill. Don’t fuck with the original!”

Companion spells: Its three far superior predecessors.

The curse: Utterly predictable and with a fractured neo-mythology, Scream 4 turned the series into the very thing it was trying to lampoon.