by CHRIS BARRY

How many times can “they” make the same old horror movie and still expect anyone to care? Well, one more time at least.

They is yet another by-the-book grade-B horror flick of the Nightmare on Elm Street variety. The latest entry from the Wes Craven Presents series, this yawner doesn’t even list Craven as executive producer, not that the great one’s seal of approval really means a whole lot anymore. Nevertheless, They merits at least a modicum of attention in that it’s directed by none other than Robert Harmon, the kook responsible for the ’86 cult oddity The Hitcher, someone we would hope is capable of recognizing a tired old script when he sees one. Apparently not.

Sexy former Montrealer Laura Regan plays a graduate student who suffered from night terrors as a child. She’s just about to get porked by her devoted boyfriend when she gets a disturbing call from her ex-old man, played by Jon Abrahams, another former night terror victim who has recently started to go wacko. Or has he?

They rendez-vous in a dimly lit café and Abrahams starts rambling about how his childhood ghoulies have come back to get him, that they’re scared of the light, and how they’re responsible for all the power failures recently going down in NYC. Then he blows his head off. At his funeral Regan meets two of Abrahams’ friends who also suffered from childhood night terrors and are gradually becoming convinced that perhaps these bad dreams they all endured as children weren’t night terrors at all, but real live ghoulies rising up from the bowels of hell for the express purpose of fucking with their heads. And now, 19 years later, it looks like these nasty spooks are coming back to fuck ’em all over once again. Oh my goodness.

If you can’t get enough of this stuff, then by all means go see They—it’s certainly not the worst film of its genre. But don’t expect to find any new twists to what has become a pretty tired formula. Everything They has to offer has been done before, and for the most part, to far better effect. :

They opens Friday, Nov. 29

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