Bones

Before its last-reel nosedive into bullpucky about a parallel world of the dead, the hip-hop horror flick Bones is gutsy, stylish and inventive. A haunted house chiller that successfully mixes B-movie goosebumps with revenge fantasy and take-back-the-ghetto themes, it stars Snoop Dogg as the pissed-off spirit of a benevolent big-time numbers runner coming back to life to kill the double-crossing criminals that murdered him in '79 and turned his neighborhood into crack central. Slick without being absurdly flashy, former Spike Lee cinematographer Ernest Dickerson's film pays homage to old-school Hammer Studios horror and Sam Raimi tongue-in-cheek terror, while boasting many surprisingly fresh concepts of its own…until, without warning, it goes spiraling off on a tangent about Snoop's ghost opening a rift into a parallel universe, and the picture loses every wisp of its chilling atmosphere. While scary movies are rarely as good as the first three quarters of Bones, they're also rarely as bad as the last quarter. A strong optional purchase. (R. Blackwelder)