Thrills, chills and tired tropes abound in Matthew Currie Holmes' halting horror debut, THE CURSE OF BUCKOUT ROAD

Evidently a hit at some of what we might call second-tier film fests -- the Pasadena International Film Festival the Hot Springs Horror Film Festival --  this new-to-cinemas-and-VOD scary movie, THE CURSE OF BUCKOUT ROAD proves an oddball mix, for sure.

The film begins most auspiciously, with moments of impending horror alternating with a college classroom scene in which a professor challenges her students with the question of why we need -- and then need to destroy -- our myths. Soon, the first corpse (of many to follow) appears, and we are off to the races once again.

As directed and co-written by Canadian actor-turned-filmmaker, Matthew Currie Holmes, shown at left, abetted by good cinematography (Rudolf Blahacek) and excellent editing (Lindsay Ljungkull), the movie takes place in the supposedly urban-legends-and-scary-stories capital of the entire USA, where a particular avenue called Buckout Road is clearly the worst place of all.

It sho' nuff' is. As soon as a character gets near the road (or even if they simply dream about it, for goodness sake), you can bet they're about to be dead. You might think that the town's police department would be just a little concerned, but the police chief (the always reliable Henry Czerny, below, right) seems more interested in badgering witnesses than in putting two and two together to arrive at... something supernatural!

Soon the town's eminent psychologist (Danny Glover, below, right) becomes involved, along with his estranged grandson (Evan Ross, below, left) and his about-to-be girlfriend, that police chief's daughter (Dominique Provost-Chalkley, above, left).

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There is also a pair of goofy fraternal twins who dream about Buckout Road (Kyle Mac and Jim Watson, shown seated below, left and right respectively). Mr. Mac gets the movie's funniest low-key line, "They're coming back, right?," more of which would have done a world of good.

The Curse of Buckout Road certainly is not an awful film. It has some decent-if-typical suspense (what's behind that door that just opened by itself?), surprise and shock (a supremely well-edited scene involving an apparition and a bathroom sink, below), clever flashbacks to the 1970s using grainy, handheld footage and, as expected given the cast, some decent performances.

But its insistence on tossing so much into its mix -- witches, albino zombies, and been-there/done-that/would-be scary/creepy things (as below) -- and then returning to each of these again and again eventually wears us viewers down. (Really now, do you have to show us more than once the same set of characters killing themselves?)

The plot, such as it is, does offer one nice surprise toward the end, and young Ross does well in his would-be "hero" role. Mr. Holmes and his movie seem to want to take us back to the former glory days of scary cinema, while using a number of more recent, modern additions to the genre. It works, I guess, off and on, and just might be enough to please horror aficionados.

From Vertical and Trimuse Entertainment, The Curse of Buckout Road opens theatrically this Friday, September 27, in Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Tampa and Riverside, California -- and will simultaneously be available via VOD.