SCARE TACTICS HOLLYWOOD BRACES FOR A BLOOD-AND-GUTS GLUT.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

You thought this summer was scary at the movies? The real horror is just beginning.

While we can't predict whether the rest of the cinema year will haunt us with anything quite as horrifying as ``Gigli'' or ``From Justin to Kelly,'' we can confidently tell you that classic scary movies (depending, as we'll explain later, on your definition of classic) are going to be in startling abundance in the weeks leading up to Halloween.

And beyond. After last weekend's boffo opening of the ``Nightmare on Elm Street''/``Friday the 13th'' smackdown match ``Freddy vs. Jason'' ($36.4 million, more than most of the entries in either long-running franchise made in their entire theatrical runs), horror movies are once again bubbling up to the top of studios' development slates.

But many filmmakers smelled something fetid in the air well before now - before, even, the British zombie carnival ``28 Days Later'' became a surprise summer indie hit.

Genre releases ready to go include Friday's batman-out-of-hell sequel ``Jeepers Creepers 2'' followed quickly by Heath Ledger's tender exploration of the sin-eating trade ``The Order'' and ``Cabin Fever,'' a lyrical ode to undressed partying teenagers attacked by flesh-eating bacteria, which has been knocking 'em dead on the film festival circuit. The fall, especially around Halloween, is packed with horror-related films, and 2004 releases include a troubled ``Exorcist'' prequel and the summer season's kickoff blockbuster ``Van Helsing,'' in which Bram Stoker's vampire hunter goes after all the classic (and this time we really mean classic: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, et al.) Universal movie monsters.

So, why the sudden uptick in fright films? First, let's acknowledge that they never really go away, because if made for a price they are almost always profitable. Thus the dreadful (in the ``Gigli'' sense) ``Darkness Falls'' found an audience at the start of this year, as did the better-put-together ``Final Destination 2'' a month or so later.

``There always are horror movies, just by dint of the fact that they usually play to a quadrant of the audience,'' notes Scott Kroopf, an executive with Radar Pictures, whose new genre subsidiary Platinum Dunes churned out the ``Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' remake, opening Oct. 17. ``One of the reasons why we felt the Platinum Dunes business was a good business for us was that young kids are always going to want to go see horror movies.''

Beyond slashers

But what may have ignited the current spurt of blood-drenched activity was the success in recent years of such high-profile chillers as ``The Sixth Sense'' and ``The Ring,'' which clearly reached well beyond the hard-core horror audience of dating teens and dateless - but no less (and probably more) fervid for it - genre fanboys. Again, ``28,'' with its references to epidemics and apparently irrational, civilization-threatening enemies, made horror safe for more intellectual moviegoers. Such little-seen summer releases as ``The Eye,'' ``May'' and ``Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary'' pushed the format even further into the art film realm.

So more horror films were produced recently in the hopes that they would cross over to a wider audience than the norm. Statistical odds tell us that the majority of upcoming fright features won't. But then, when ``Freddy vs. Jason'' can boast a better opening weekend than the highly hyped ``Tomb Raider'' sequel on the strength of the fan base alone, all preconceived box office bets are off.

``I don't know if these series were moribund, but they were withering,'' acknowledges Sean S. Cunningham, creator of the ``Friday'' franchise and ``Freddy vs. Jason's'' producer. ``I think it was the notion of putting Freddy and Jason together that got people wondering what would happen. They have always been set up as invincible boogeymen bad guys; you and I would never stand a chance, but up against each other, that might be kind of cool.

``That, plus the whole sort of WWF promotion of it, I think just created a want-to-see curiosity.''

Cunningham adds that a higher production budget than what is usually lavished on these series' programmers helped make the team-up seem like more of a special event. Over at American Zoetrope, the Francis Ford Coppola-headed company that makes the ``Jeepers'' films, senior vice president and the sequel's executive producer Bobby Rock reckons that it's cinematic quality that made the first entry in his horror franchise a surprise success over the usually dead Labor Day weekend two years ago, and predicts the same black magic will strike again.

``Victor Salva (the `Jeepers' writer-director) is getting known among the Fangoria crowd as an artful horrormeister,'' Rock explains. ``He insists on nice cinematography and takes great pains to make his films cinematic, if you will, and not just slashers. And, you know, Francis got his start with Roger Corman.''

That, for the uninitiated, would be the low-budget, exploitation genre king for whom the eventual ``Godfather'' maestro directed some of his first features, among them the horror pic ``Dementia 13.''

The new crop

Today's tyro auteurs, however, may not be expected to graduate into the same kind of serious filmmaking as Coppola did. Their ambitions aim in a different direction, informed by the kinds of fright films they saw, and loved, in their youth.

At least that seems to be the case with ``Cabin Fever'' writer-director Eli Roth. He knows what he wants to see on the scary screen - the gory, hormonal thrills of the Reagan-era slasher series - stuff that older fans of the Universal school and its British Hammer Films remakes would wince to hear called classics.

But Roth makes his argument for the slasher cycle's greatness passionately.

``I wanted to make a movie that would be a throwback to films like `Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and `Evil Dead' and `Halloween' and `John Carpenter's The Thing,' '' the 31-year-old Roth declares. ``Where they went full-on with the blood, the guts, the killing, the dismemberment, the mayhem; it was really dark, anyone could die at any minute, and they didn't chicken out at any turn.

``The reason why so many of today's horror movies suck so badly is that they don't try to write interesting characters, they don't try to make them scary beyond just having a `jump' scare, and you have a lot of TV actors in them who don't want to do the nudity and the sex scenes,'' Roth analytically adds. ``Frankly, when I go see a movie like `Wrong Turn' and the kids are having sex in the woods with their clothes on, it really bothers me. Y'know, when I see that R rating, I want to see the good stuff!''

Obviously, good stuff, in this context, is a rather subjective quality. As an example, Kroopf, whose ``Chainsaw'' remake was co-produced by the not-known-for-subtlety Michael Bay, is proud to note that his film (quite unlike the organ-grinding original) gets most of its scares from suggestive ``what you don't see'' horror. He's also pleased that it's got experienced TV actors such as Jessica Biel in the cast, whether or not they'll get naked.

In the end, though, all agree that, as long as the real world remains a scary place - a situation unlikely to let up anytime soon - movie audiences will feel a need to see their fears sublimated, graphically or otherwise, on a big screen in a dark room full of other frightened strangers.

``Go back to the '50s, the McCarthy era and all those films that came out then,'' ``Jeepers'' producer Rock notes. ``The environment certainly is not getting any better now. Just look at the newspaper: the West Nile virus, SARS, crime, snipers, terrorism ... I think there is a lot to fear out there.''

``The best horror movies are always something that look at society's fear at the time,'' adds Roth, indicating that even the biggest sex-and-gore hounds might actually be doing a little thinking about what their favorite blood sport could mean. The way things look now, they'll be able to indulge both visceral and intellectual impulses for a long time to come.

Bob Strauss, (818) 3-3670

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

Be afraid ... be very afraid

Here are some of the horror releases on the way:

``Jeepers Creepers 2'' (Friday) - creepy sequel.

``The Order'' (Sept. 5) - exploration of the sin-eating trade.

``Cabin Fever'' (Sept. 12) - partying teenagers are attacked by flesh-eating bacteria.

``Underworld'' (Sept. 19) - Romeo and Juliet redux involving warring clans of vampires and werewolves.

``Bubba Ho-Tep'' (Sept. 26) - Elvis vs. the Mummy (!).

``Scary Movie 3'' (Oct. 3) - the inevitable spoof sequel.

``Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' (Oct. 17) - the remake is getting good buzz.

``Gothika'' (Oct. 24) - Halle Berry trapped in madhouse.

``Alien'' (Oct. 31 - a director's cut re-release of Ridley Scott's monster- in-a-spaceship classic.

``The Haunted Mansion'' (Nov. 26) - Eddie Murphy in the Disneyland attraction come to afterlife.

And an assortment of odd titles without set release dates yet: ``Hotel Room,'' ``Hypnotic'' and ``Suspended Animation.''

Next year: ``Exorcist'' prequel and the big-budget summer film ``Van Helsing,'' starring Hugh Jackman as Bram Stoker's vampire hunter taking on an assortment of Universal movie monsters like Frankenstein, the Wolf Man and, of course, Dracula.

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Experiments in Terror

Horror flicks on the rise as filmmakers find new ways to scare up audiences

(2 -- 5) Fright fests: ``The Order,'' top, opens Sept. 5; ``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,'' right, is coming Oct. 17; ``28 Days Later,'' above, was a surprise summer hit. ``Freddy vs. Jason,'' opposite, had a bloody- good $36.4 million opening last weekend.

(6) ``Cabin Fever,'' with Jordan Ladd as a teen attacked by flesh-eating bacteria, opens Sept. 12.

(7) ``Jeepers Creepers 2'' arrives Friday at a theater near you.

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Be afraid ... be very afraid (see text)