The protagonists in George A. Romero’s zombie classic Dawn of the Dead (1978), with a helicopter at their disposal and the ability to hole up just about anywhere, choose the shopping mall as the best place to take refuge from the undead. After all, where else would you find such unlimited supplies of those two essentials, food and guns? Not such good fortune for the residents of Bridgton, Maine who find themselves in a rather less well-stocked supermarket when a strange mist descends outside, filled with strange tentacular creatures seemingly intent on cutting the townspeople’s lives short in as gruesome ways as imaginable.

But hey! Guess what? Maybe the real enemies are inside the building – like the crazed Bible bashing shit-stirrer, who takes a distinctly Old Testament view of events. And those army guys in the background looking shifty – they wouldn’t have anything to do with what’s going on outside, would they? When will they learn not to meddle with science, eh?

If this all sounds like fairly standard bug movie fare, then you’d be right. Other genre archetypes are inevitably present: the rugged handsome everyman, complete with annoying unadvisably running-around child; the dweeb who just might turn out to be a bit handy with a firearm; the foolish doubting expendables running headfirst into gory deaths. And of course the will-they won’t-they couples for whom things aren’t probably going to work out in the long term.

For all of its stock characters, standard CGI aliens and predictable scenarios, The Mist has opened to some breathlessly enthusiastic reviews. Part of this is down to director Frank Darabont’s name on the credits; a tremendous amount of goodwill surrounds his first Stephen King adaptation, The Shawshank Redemption (1994), whose broad theme of hope in the face of despair sees it regularly propelled to the top of favourite film polls, despite its shortcomings. Like Shawshank, The Mist is based on a King novella; the theme here though, instead of the possibility of hope, is its almost entire absence. As those trapped inside the shop realise the helplessness of their situation, there is a slow descent into Lord of the Flies savagery, with a touch of JG Ballard-esque ritualism. There is obvious social commentary here: what happens to good decent America when faced with an unknown enemy, or at least the perception of one.

Whether or not the film succeeds on this plane of social comment though is questionable: the leaden script and wooden characters don’t help matters, despite some good performances from the well-chosen cast. At least from my British perspective, Marcia Gay Harden’s rabid evangelist is more than a little too over-the-top to properly satirically bite, her overly eager to follow flock all too easily swayed towards bloodshed. As a genre bug movie, it does offer pretty good value, if at times rather too predictably. Many times references are made to other, better films – the Romero films, Aliens (1986) – which only manage to highlight this one’s shortcomings. At over two hours long it also rather over-stays its welcome: maybe a Roger Corman would have been rather less forgiving in the editing suite.

Shawshank, for me, had similar problems: noble ambitions, an interesting setup, excellent performances, let down by a cheesy script and a lack of directorial subtlety. The one standout moment in that film was the well-executed penultimate reel detailing Andy’s escape – one of cinemas more memorable triumphant endings. Darabont has produced a similarly memorable ending here, surprising in its unremitting bleakness and certain not to leave one skipping out of the cinema in glee. If the rest of The Mist is somewhat lacking, then it at least hits the mark squarely here.

Dawn is just an ordinary girl dealing with the troubles of adolescence: attractive, but bemused by the changes her body is going through, she suffers from the customary teenage lack of confidence in her self-image. Whilst becoming increasingly aware in members of the opposite sex, she has found herself as a spokesperson for the ‘True Love Waits’ movement, who encourage the wearing of rings as a sign of pre-marital chastity. ‘Purity’ is their mantra. So when Dawn becomes attracted to a boy at her school, Tobey, she is naturally conflicted, her physical attraction to him in contradiction to her promotion of abstinence. Her brother, on the other hand, is a promiscuous misfit, taunting her with some seriously innapropriate comments.

The subject of chastity movements is extremely ripe material for parody, and there is some light mockery: for instance, Dawn’s erotic dreams of Tobey suitably intertwined with some rather strange wedding imagery, poking fun at the idea that marriage is the answer to healthy sexual relations. But there is one simple twist to the film’s satire: Dawn, unfortunately, is not exactly like everyone else as she has teeth in her genitalia. The results of this condition are as grimly predictable as the havoc inflicted by Carrie (1976), and we are spared little graphic detail – any men going to watch this are strongly advised to pack a strong stomach and some loose-fitting underwear. Needless to say, her increasingly dysfunctional encounters with a succession of terrible men do not end well for them.

Vagina dentata, we are informed, is a condition rooted in many different mythologies, but is ultimately a product of genophobia (male fear of sexual castration) as well as being rooted in misogyny. So what Teeth does is cleverly turn this misogyny on its head (no pun intended), making her condition an empowering one: she demonstrably can have normal relations, but when being taken advantage of physically, quite literally bites back (ouch). The subject of gynaecology raises the spectre of David Cronenberg’s masterpiece Dead Ringers (1988), a film which is rooted in the subconscious male fear of the female organ, and while Teeth never aspires to that level of psychological insight, it is certainly a kindred spirit.

At the centre of it all is the wonderfully cast Jess Weixler – a picture of cherubic innocence, looking a cross between Reece Witherspoon and Heather Graham. Her confusion and horror at the realisation of what is happening is played straight, but with real comedy, and pleasingly won her a Special Jury Prize at Sundance last year. Elsewhere the peripheral characters are a little too cliched: the heavy-metal misfit brother, the unhelpful if well meaning parents, and her succession of nerdy, sexually charged victims. But, after all, this is a camp exploitation horror, not a painstaking character study.

I found myself laughing out loud at least five times at some terrifically comic moments, though admittedly uncomfortably so. Director Mitchell Lichtenstein, son of pop art painter Roy, exploits the setup for all of its worth, and keeps a control over the pacing so as to keep the blood and guts neatly spaced apart, slowly ramping up the graphic intensity to keep the audience increasingly amused and horrified simultaneously. I found it hugely enjoyable, but those of a slightly more squeamish disposition should be advised to steer well clear.

The hegemony that the Judd Apatow stable currently holds over the slacker romantic comedy market makes it all the more appealing to watch this, a good-natured and at times genuinely touching film, whose characters and situations are much more three-dimensional and realistic than much of what American indie cinema has offered up recently.

Wilson, played by Scoot Mcnairy somewhere between Steve Buscemi and Jason Lee, is a budding screenwriter in his late-twenties who has moved to LA to be near the action. Unfortunately the plan has not entirely paid off; his script is still gathering dust rather than wowing the execs, leaving him predictably despondent. Desparate, and in need of a date for New Year’s Eve, he takes up his flatmates’ suggestion of advertising on the internet for a willing partner to see out the remaining hours of the year with, and to his surprise someone actually calls and arranges to meet him in the city. She is Vivian, a struggling actress whose small-town dreams of West Coast stardom seem to be going similarly awry. While he is glad to wallow in despondency, she on the other hand seems to cover up in an aloof rudeness, in particular to members of the opposite sex.

This rather odd pairing, in spite of or perhaps because of their outward differences, then begin to spend the day together, and begin to enjoy each other’s company more and more. The film is advertised as “from the producer of Before Sunset“, and there is a clear debt to the films of Richard Linklater here – our unlikely couple exchange thoughts on life and love, rather abrasively at first, and including some frank discussions of sex worthy of the best of Kevin Smith. What is particularly impressive is director Holdridge’s control of pacing and characterisation – drip feeding us enough information and insight to keep us wanting to know more, but never going overboard.

The film is shot in a hazy black-and-white, as most reviewers have pointed out, a montone reminiscent of Manhattan (1979), and like Woody Allen’s love for NYC there is clearly an affection on the director’s part for some of LA’s lesser-known areas on display – abandoned theatres, out-of-the-way restaurants and cafes, strange signs and little details that only a local’s keen eye would be familiar with. I dare say downtown Los Angeles has never looked so romantic, outside of the sheen of Hollywood boulevard and Rodeo Drive. In terms of comedic tone, there is a kinship with Chasing Amy (1997) and Clerks (1994), and I was also reminded of Julie Delpy’s underrated gem from last year, 2 Days in Paris (2007). And aside from its well-observed if sometimes crass humour, there is real pathos and sweetness here too, and depth of characterization.

On meeting Vivian for the first time, I considered her to be a little too ridiculously over-the-top, too stylised to seem real. But by the end of the film I had realised that this was intentional, just as our first meeting with Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall makes her seem at first overly kooky. Living in LA requires Vivian to put on a front, several faces to hide the real one underneath, adding to the fact that she spends most of her early screentime hiding behind large dark glasses. By by the end of the film we do get to glimpse the real Vivian, just as the camera has become intimate enough with our leading pair to indulge in close-up shots of their faces. And then we see in the monochrome cinematography their imperfections – dimples, hairs, spots – the blemishes which make them human, and real.

Two films originating from Mexico, both focusing on the increasing divide between that country’s haves and have-nots, but in radically differing ways.

La Zona, the debut feature by director Rodrigo Plá sets up a more artificial environment in which to explore the issues surrounding this subject. The titular ‘Zone’ is an exclusive area of Mexico City, walled off from the rest of the capital, filled with expansive American-style condominiums and tree lined boulevards, seemingly a Westernized idyll when compared to the packed slums just outside of its gates. The residents are naturally the more well-off classes able to afford such luxurious surroundings, though their constant fear of incursions into their particular Eden means that they are surrounded by closely-monitored CCTV cameras and their houses fitted with ridiculously loud alarm systems.

As we join the film, a thunderstorm leads to the collapse of one section of the Zone’s wall, creating a temporary way in for a group of teenage boys who decide to use the opportunity to burgle some of the houses of its rich residents. What they hadn’t banked upon was the response to their incursion; the Zone’s residents, in their paranoia at such an event, run a vigilante security force of their own, and seem to have no qualms with dealing with intruders in as brutal ways as possible.

Plá’s film is unmistakably polemical; the artifice of the Zone is illustrative of a less visible but all-too-real wall circling off the rich and poor in modern Mexico. While his message could seem a little preachy, the tight scripting and characterizations, plus a more subtle directorial style than, say, the overblown theatrics that fellow countryman Alejandro González Iñarritu has begun to foster, mean that La Zona gets its message across in a powerful, sympathetic way. Expect great things to come from Rodrigo Plá.

In stark aesthetic contrast to La Zona, Déficit, the directorial debut of Mexican cinema’s poster-boy Gael García Bernal, is a much lighter affair, though with similar thematic concerns. An obvious spin on the upper-class country house farce, in the tradition of Jean Renoir’s La Regle Du Jeu (1939) or Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001), Déficit takes aim at the spoiled scions of Mexico’s nouveau riches, giving them all just about enough rope to hang themselves. Bernal plays Cristobal, who is throwing a party for his friends at his parents’ large mansion, located just outside of Mexico City. They have money as his father is a famous economist, and Cristobal seems intent on following in his footsteps by planning to go off to Harvard in the autumn.

The guests begin to arrive, and it becomes clear that some are more welcome than others. Cristobal is placated when introduced to a beautiful Argentinian girl, who he seems intent on having his wicked way with, at least before the arrival of his actual girlfriend, who through a series of phoned misdirections seems never likely to find the place. The film is for the most part light and breezy, with only small hints of resentments beneath the exterior facade, but when things begin to go awry the tensions really begin to surface – what brother thinks of sister, what friends think of other friends, what the rich brats really think of the Asian gardener, and indeed what the central rich brat really thinks of himself, and the expectations that he finds himself unable to live up to.

An excellent ensemble cast keeps things flowing nicely, with moments of comedy and real charm. Bernal under-directs to the point of whimsy at times, but this ultimately is an exercise in mockery rather than satire so there is little need for flashiness. A low-key, personal project then, but an entertaining and somewhat poignant one.

There is a certain degree of charm and innocence to seeing Indiana Jones return to our screens once again; after all, most franchises these days are keen to stress their post-9/11 seriousness, giving us the raw edginess of the Bourne films, a new hard ugly James Bond in Casino Royale and a camp-free Batman as played by Christian Bale. What is good about the new Indy film is that it makes no concession to this, jumping straight back into the same territory of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a film released no less than 19 years ago.

To judge the film by any other standard than the one set by the original trilogy would be foolhardy, so lets proceed this way; there are the requisite action sequences, scenes of moody tomb-raiding, encounters with strange backward tribes and man-eating insects, dodgy foes with even dodgier accents, and the usual cacophony of fist-fights, chases and occasional pithy one-liners that we are all familiar with. The plot, for what it’s worth, revolves around some sort of alien race, nuclear testing, Russian spies, double agents and other similarly preposterous things that, let’s face it, we all love and don’t really care about the details too much.

Some of these aspects are good – two chase sequences in particular are so ridiculously over-the-top and fun that one can’t help grinning like the Cheshire Cat through them. Spielberg can lay at least partial claim to hegemony on a certain type of action sequence, and makes direction of this seem almost effortless. Harrison Ford still cuts a mean cinematic figure too, and though lacking the boyish charm of the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, he makes up for it with a bumbling clumsiness that never seems played-out or annoyingly cloying. There is some terrific scenery chewing by the likes of Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent and John Hurt, though a little more from all of them would not have gone amiss.

The film seems to press most of the right buttons, and yet in my opinion fell rather flat in places. The presence of some of the exposition, whilst understandable, did drop the pace for long periods, and there was a lack of either urgency or humour to these passages. Indy’s famously sharp tongue was a little blunted throughout, the dialogue never feeling snappy enough to match his previous outings. And what a waste of the returning Karen Allen as Indy’s first love Marion, her initial feistiness quickly pacified by a throwaway cheesy line. Shia LeBeouf is not nearly as irritating as he could have been, but if you can’t see his ‘surprise’ revelation in store a mile off, then a trip to the opticians may well be called for.

Overall, I did end up asking myself why Spielberg chose to come back to Indy after all of these years. Sure he still has the directorial chops, and maybe time is running out to hand the baton over to a younger Jones before Harrison Ford is finally unable to run and jump convincingly for the cameras, but there is neither the vitality of the story nor the sense of completing unfinished business here that spells out that returning to this familiar ground was entirely necessary. Yet for all of its shortcomings, there is still a small part of me that likes the idea that there is still a place for this kind of old-fashioned action movie film-making, without too much knowing self-satisfaction, unnecessary irony, camp nostalgia or post-9/11 grittiness, which so many of the summer blockbusters this year will undoubtedly be full of.