Ghost House Pictures | Sarah Michelle Gellar | nurse | Tokyo

Raimi is now a partner in Ghost House Pictures, maker of the kind of thrillers that appear at No. 1 in box office receipts seemingly every week before quickly vanishing into the ether like a vengeful specter. Among its releases are 2004's The Grudge (debuted at No. 1), starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as an American nurse in Tokyo surrounded by poor suckers who succumb to a rancorous curse; Boogeyman (also debuting at No. 1), about a traumatized guy who returns home to face his (literal) demons; the upcoming Rise, in which a reporter wakes up in a morgue and finds herself among the living dead; Scarecrow, in which spooky ­doings unsettle a family who have taken over a sunflower farm; and 30 Days of Night, a vampire tale based on a cult-­favorite comic book. Then there's the just-announced remake of Evil Dead, which Raimi will not direct because he's too busy prepping the third Spider-Man movie. The man has become his own fright franchise.

SCARY PROFIT
These movies - call them horror movies or psychological thrillers, it makes no difference when things go bump in the fright - make a terrifying amount of money these days, no matter how small-time their casts, how lousy their scripts, or how ­second-rate their effects. It doesn't matter who lurks in the shadows - Robert De Niro in the ­second-rate Hide and Seek (oh, yeah, debuted at No. 1), Cary Elwes in the gruesomely exploitative Saw, or Milla Jovovich in the video game adaptation Resident Evil - they make money. It doesn't matter how preposterous the setup - the dead speaking through a car radio's static, as in (yes, No. 1) White Noise, starring Michael ­Keaton, - they make money. It doesn't matter if it's been done before - the ­sequel-to-the-fifth-power Seed of Chucky or remakes of The Amityville Horror, The Fog, and House of Wax, all due this year - they'll probably make money. Make something go boo from around a corner - and this year, there are loads of such movies rearing their ugly heads, with titles such as The Skeleton Key and Dark Water and Cursed - and it will likely make money.