For most of its length, The Prom is like an early, super-sized Glee episode with 100 percent fewer commercial breaks and 100 percent more Meryl Streep.

The animated-comedy sequel The Croods: A New Age is like an elongated, best-ever episode of The Flintstones, and I mean that as a compliment even though I never really cared for The Flintstones.

Even in its one-joke way, the premise sounded promising: a high-school slasher flick in the guise of a body-switching comedy. (Or perhaps it's the other way around.) Unfortunately, though, the mild fun of writer/director Christopher Landon's Freaky pretty much ends with its set-up, and once that central conceit is established, what transpires is so oddly dull that it's like being disappointed by the same movie twice. I was hoping for Halloween meets Freaky Friday. What we get is closer to Prom Night meets Vice Versa.

No modern horror movie, not even last November's mostly decent sequel Doctor Sleep, should have to be compared to Stanley Kubrick's 1980 masterpiece The Shining. Writer/director Jacob Chase's Come Play, however, is pretty much begging for the comparisons, given that its child lead, in many shots, looks uncannily like the tormented Danny Torrance, and its title – one that instantly conjures images of creepy twin girls in a hotel hallway – all but demands to be followed by “... with Us, Danny.” Needless to say, though, Come Play is not The Shining. Sadly, despite boasting a bunch of fine elements, it's not even Doctor Sleep.