In bookmaking, there of course has to be a specific end result in mind before you can calculate the odds of that result occurring. For example: “Team A will win the football game” or “Horse #9 will win the race” or “‘Jonah Hex’ will win the Oscar for Best Picture”. In this article, the end result is expressed as the following: “[Name of film] will be good”. The trouble with that, of course, is that unlike the above examples, it’s an end result that’s difficult to quantify – i.e. just how do you define “good”? Of course, each of us defines it in our own way – there are probably those out there who admire Jonah Hex, but that’s a personal opinion not shared by the majority of critics and filmgoers. For the purposes of this article, I decided to define as “good” a film that’s considered a quality piece of work by at least a majority of horror critics and audiences – think The Descent, Let Me In, Drag Me to Hell, et al. These are films that, while not everyone count themselves as a fan, enjoy a general degree of acclaim in the horror community.

The formula I’ll be using here is odds against, meaning that the number of times we would expect the “event” not to occur (m) precedes the number of times we would expect the event to occur (n) – in this case, the “event” being that the film will be “good” based on the above definition. This would be expressed as the ratio m/n. So, say we were applying this formula to the Friedberg & Seltzer movie Vampires Suck from last year. Knowing Friedberg & Seltzer’s apocalyptic track record as directors, I would’ve expressed the odds against Vampires Suck being “good” as 1,000,0000/1. On the flip side, if I felt a film had a better chance of being “good” – say Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan – the ratio would still read m/n but the first number (the number of times we could expect the event not to occur, taking all relevant factors into account) would be smaller than the second number (the number of times we would expect the event to occur). So that ratio would be something along the lines of 1/5. Clear enough? No? Alrighty then, let the betting begin!

One note: I am not including upcoming releases that have either already received an official review from B-D (i.e. ‘Drive Angry 3-D’) and/or those that have been widely reviewed on the festival circuit (i.e. ‘Insidious’).

The question here really isn’t whether or not Beastly will be bad, but rather just how bad it’ll end up being. Where do we start? How about distributor CBS Films, which in its short life span has already released three middle-of-the-road duds – Harrison Ford weep-fest Extraordinary Measures, J. Lo debacle The Back-up Plan, and Dwayne Johnson flop Faster. Or maybe we can begin with the unbelievably lame “beastly” makeup, which isn’t horrific at all but rather makes star Alex Pettyfer look like an emo kid who conducted an ill-advised high-school art project on his own face. Of course, we could also talk about the cast, which features both the cracked-out Olsen twin and one-note Disney starlet Vanessa Hudgens. Oh, and the trailer is awful. Not to mention, director Daniel Barnz has only helmed one other feature, Phoebe in Wonderland, which was released in 2009 to lukewarm critical and audience response. I could really go on, but I think you get the point.

Odds: 50/1

Excitement is high for this big-budget alien invasion flick from director Jonathan Liebesman (Darkness Falls, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning), which is being preceded by a couple of great trailers and massive hype. Then again, a great trailer doesn’t always equal a quality film, and we’ve certainly been burned in this capacity before. In addition, Liebesman hasn’t ever taken on a project this massive in scope previously, though he’s shown some promise with his past films, particularly the brutal Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Overall, it’s hard not to be excited by some of the awesome teaser footage, so at the very least it looks like we’ve got some sweet battle sequences and top-notch visual effects to look forward to. Hey, as alien invasion flicks go it can’t be any worse than Skyline.

Odds: 2/3

Looking something like a teeny-bopper version of last year’s The Wolfman, Red Riding Hood was helmed by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, who isn’t exactly beloved by horror fans for her involvement in the ‘tween-friendly vampire franchise. That being said, the first Twilight was an Ingmar Bergman movie compared to the Chris Weitz-directed New Moon, and Hardwicke certainly has the right sensibility to tackle a film aimed at young girls. Not to mention, lead actress Amanda Seyfried can actually act, and here she’s joined by a rock-solid older supporting cast that includes Gary Oldman, Julie Christie, and Virginia Madsen. On the flip side, buzz isn’t exactly spectacular for the film, and if it truly ends up being bad horror fans won’t – thanks to the (assumed) PG-13 rating – have much in the way of gore to keep them occupied.

Odds: 8/1

I wasn’t so sure about Scream 4 after watching the first trailer – which premiered at the SPIKE Scream Awards back in October – but now the fantastic new spot has me all hyped up again. The big question here is which Wes Craven will show up to play – the hack who directed My Soul to Take and Cursed, or the horror virtuoso who gave us such classics as A Nightmare on Elm Street and the first Scream? It’s a tough one to answer, although if his recent oeuvre is any indication we might be in for a big disappointment. On the other hand, relative to other slasher follow-ups the Scream sequels have generally been pretty solid, and Craven is definitely on his home turf here, which could make all the difference after his recent, mostly sub-par attempts at spawning new franchises. In addition, it also boasts the return of three of the cast members from the original trilogy (Campbell, Cox, Arquette), as well as a huge group of name supporting players. The tagline “new decade, new rules” also holds the vague promise of some truly shocking surprises (word is there are some real doozies in there), and it’s been hyped by some insiders as the bloodiest entry in the series yet. Nevertheless, rumors of numerous on-set conflicts and rewrites by Scream 3 scribe Ehren Kruger that reportedly caused bad blood between Williamson and the production could also be an indication of too many hands in the pot, which is never a good sign. The two days of “additional photography” that took place following some early test screenings also don’t exactly bode well.

Odds: 2/1

Apollo 18 has the benefit of a great premise – what if the Apollo 18 mission, reportedly cancelled by NASA back in the early 1970s, had actually taken place? – as well as some talented folks behind the camera, namely producer Timur Bekmambetov (director of Night Watch, Day Watch, and Wanted) and director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, who among other films helmed the well-received thriller El rey de la montana back in 2007. Sure, the currently-hot “found footage” sub-genre is growing a little tired, but this one is backed up by an inspired idea and a great team – not to mention a creepy little viral campaign that has me intrigued. With this one I guess the question really should be: will they even make the new release date?

Odds: 3/4

It’s not looking good, boys and girls. First sign of trouble for Priest: it’s being released by Screen Gems, home of mostly middle-of-the-road dreck like the Underworld series and crappy remakes including The Stepfather and Prom Night. Second sign: it was directed by Scott Stewart, who helmed last year’s absolutely dreadful Legion. Third: the vampires were created using only CGI, so we can probably expect monsters that look like they belong in an Xbox 360 game (and the trailer bears this out). Fourth: a 3D post-conversion that will probably look like crap, as evidenced by the last few experiments with the process (Clash of the Titans, My Soul to Take, et al). But there have to at least be some positive indicators, no? Well, the trailer does look great, and Stewart certainly has a way with visuals, as evidenced by Legion – although that didn’t stop the movie from sucking like a hungry baby kitten on its mother’s teet. At the very least the film has the benefit of Paul Bettany as leading man – a very good actor who, alas, also wasn’t enough to salvage Stewart’s last movie.

Odds: 11/1

With a really good trailer, a cool-sounding period premise, a buzz-worthy viral campaign, and a to-die-for collaboration between director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg, who isn’t excited for Super 8? The thing of it is though, skyrocketing excitement could end up backfiring on the film if it fails to live up to expectations – we already saw this happen with horror fans after the tease of a more pure-blooded horror/sci-fi movie gave way to the almost E.T./Close Encounters-style trailer – and let’s not forget that Abrams is far better known as a writer/producer than as a director. Don’t get me wrong: Star Trek was a solid – if somewhat overrated – reboot, and Mission Impossible III was fine for what it was, but he’s not exactly up to Spielberg’s level…yet.

Odds: 1/6

Chris Gorak’s Right at Your Door had a mixed reception when it debuted in theaters back in 2007, though at the very least the director showed a deft hand with creating a paranoid atmosphere on a small budget. But it’s a whole new ball game with The Darkest Hour, a big-studio production which features a name cast, huge locations (it was filmed in several iconic areas around Moscow) and a much bigger budget (although at a reported $44 million it’s still a relatively modest one). And let’s not forget that the alien-invasion thriller is only Gorak’s second feature. At least he’s got the help of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Wanted), who served as producer and was there to oversee things during principal photography. And yes, it was shot in real 3-D – so at the very least we won’t have to deal with any post-conversion nonsense. Let’s just hope Fox and Summit didn’t interfere too much during production (as both companies are wont to do) – too many opinions by too many people could water down the cool-sounding vision and sink this puppy like a weighted body in a deep, dark ocean.

Odds: 9/2

On the one hand, Fright Night is a good movie to remake. The original, while a fun little slice of ’80s horror/comedy and with a large cult following, isn’t exactly a stone cold classic; it’s quite dated and a little uneven on the whole. But it’s also unclear exactly what director Craig Gillespie will bring to the table. Sure, he helmed critical favorite Lars and the Real Girl, but that same year he also directed the awful Billy Bob Thornton “comedy” flop Mr. Woodcock. Not to mention, it remains unclear how he’ll handle the film’s darker horror elements, considering he’s never worked in the genre before. Luckily he enjoyed the benefit of a screenplay written by Marti Noxon, who’s at least familiar with the horror/comedy universe (having written for Buffy and Angel for many years). And from all we’ve heard it definitely sounds like they’re attempting to keep the tone of the original while also making the vamps more vicious – i.e. dangling the vague promise of an ‘R’ rating in front of us. Perhaps the project’s strongest asset is the cast, with veteran thesps Colin Farrell and Toni Collette joining up-and-comers Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, and Christopher Mitz-Plasse (in a bit of perfect casting as “Evil Ed”). Yes, filming it in 3-D was completely unnecessary and an obvious ploy for boosted grosses, but look on the bright side: at least Dreamworks managed to wrest it from the slimy grip of Sony Screen Gems.

Odds: 5/2

In a franchise that just keeps on going despite the fact that its “sell-by” date expired sometime around 2006, no one in their right mind should reasonably be expecting Final Destination 5 to be anything more than an instantly forgettable diversion. Then again, director Steven Quale – while he has only one feature-length director credit (actually a 2-part miniseries on ABC called Superfire) under his belt – is a James Cameron protégé who served as second unit director on both Titanic and Avatar. And at the very least he knows his way around those heavy-duty 3D cameras, which director David R. Ellis reportedly had a lot of trouble with on the last (pretty awful) installment. The production also managed to snag a really good lead actress in Emma Bell, who was so effective in last year’s Frozen. At the same time…it is a Final Destination sequel, so keep your expectations in check – and try not to pay too much attention to the studio’s insistence that they’re trying hard to correct the mistakes of the last couple of sequels. We’ve been fooled by talk like that before.

Odds: 4/1

Let’s be frank: director David R. Ellis doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record. Though he helmed the reasonably fun Final Destination 2, he was also responsible for the less-than-stellar fourth installment. Now consider for a moment the other films on his resume: Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco. Cellular. Snakes on a Plane. Asylum. In short: it would be unreasonable of us to hold out much hope that his latest film, the tentatively-titled Shark Night 3D, will prove to be anything approaching the level of “good”. Indeed, Ellis himself appears to be treating the movie as something of a joke, given recent reports that he’d be just fine releasing it with the says-it-all title Untitled 3D Shark Thriller (need I bring up Snakes on a Plane again?) The thing is, I’d be just fine if it proved to be a slice of mindless, B-movie fun, but Ellis hasn’t really proven to me yet that he’s capable pulling that off with any regularity. Maybe he can at least get back to his FD2 “glory” days on this one?

Odds: 5/1

It’s hard to predict the quality of an upcoming film when a director is making his feature debut with project, as is Todd Lincoln with Warner Bros.’ The Apparition. But at the very least, the plot – about a supernatural force that’s unleashed during a college experiment on the paranormal – sounds vaguely intriguing. The cast attachments certainly don’t inspire much in the way of confidence, however, at least when it comes to the film’s horror credentials: Ashley Greene is best known as “Alice Cullen” from the teeny-bopper Twilight series, and Sebastian Stan’s closest brush with the genre came in the form of moving Abercrombie & Fitch catalog The Covenant. The fact of the release date also doesn’t hold much promise, since early September is known as something of a dumping ground for films the studio isn’t confident enough to premiere during the summer or in the thick of fall’s “Oscar bait” season. Production company Dark Castle’s track record with genre fare is decent if rather spotty, as they’ve been responsible for some solid stuff like Splice and The Orphan as well as crap-fests like Whiteout and The Reaping. In general though, doesn’t this thing have the stink of “PG-13” slot-filler all over it?

Odds: 12/1

The follow-up to the Alex Aja-directed original, Piranha 3DD – fast-tracked for release less than a year out from the first movie’s debut – is being helmed by Feast I-III director John Gulager, who’s certainly proven before that he’s capable of balancing gore-drenched horror and dark comedy pretty effectively. Another plus here is that unlike the first movie, 3DD is actually being filmed in 3-D, as opposed to going through one of those “pop-up book” post-conversions. Not to mention that while the first film was generally well-liked, it wasn’t so much so to where the sequel will have an impossible time living up to it in the eyes of horror fans. The Weinstein Co. also certainly seems to have a lot of confidence in the project, and with promises of more gore than the first movie (per effects guru Gary Tunnicliffe), this sequel just might turn out to be a pretty damn fun ride.

Odds: 2/5

Let’s get one thing straight: no one has any business remaking the 1971 Sam Peckinpah classic Straw Dogs – least of all Screen Gems. The Sony division has already churned out snooze-worthy PG-13 “reimaginings” like The Stepfather, Prom Night, and When a Stranger Calls, so what’s to keep them from fouling this one up too? For starters, there’s absolutely no way that writer/director Rod Lurie can top the original helmed by Peckinpah, one of the greatest American directors of all time. Lurie isn’t a bad filmmaker, but when you put he and Peckinpah’s films side by side there’s simply no comparison. Peckinpah directed The Wild Bunch; Lurie directed The Last Castle. Peckinpah directed Ride the High Country; Lurie directed Resurrecting the Champ. The same goes for the cast – James Marsden is a good actor, for sure, but I would defy anyone to put him in the same category as Dustin Hoffman. Therein lies the problem of remaking a movie like Straw Dogs – there’s just no way you can live up to the original. So why bother? Lurie has at least assured the press the film will be a “hard-‘R'” construct instead of watered-down PG-13 fare, so I suppose that’s something. But overall, those involved have set themselves up for a big backlash – particularly if the movie ends up being just plain bad. Given Lurie’s halfway decent track record there’s a glimmer of hope that it’ll at least be a solid piece of work on its own terms, but unfortunately even that may not be enough.

Odds: 11/2

The long-in-development prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing was recently moved from a February 25th to an October 14th release date after being plagued by news of “additional photography”, reportedly undertaken to beef up the film’s character development. Uh oh. Ok, so that doesn’t mean the movie’s going to be bad necessarily, but it doesn’t exactly engender confidence – particularly given that commercial director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. hasn’t ever helmed a feature-length movie before. Nevertheless, what I could see from the grainy teaser leaked out of New York’s 2010 Comic Con looked pretty cool, though as we all know trailers aren’t the best indicators of a movie’s quality. But we should at least give the producers and studio Universal credit for one thing: it’s not a remake, which in my mind gives it more potential to be cool, especially considering it won’t have to compete (as much) with the memory of Carpenter’s movie. That being said, people will still inevitably compare the two, and the ’82 movie is an incredibly tough one to look up to. But at least it stars genre fave Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the lead role, in addition to featuring a great effects team behind the scenes. Sure there’ll be some CGI in it, but given Image Engine’s spectacularly realistic digital work on District 9, at least it’ll be good CGI.

Odds: 5/1

You knew it was coming. The next horror movie franchise to dominate October on an annual basis appears to be Paranormal Activity, with the third film being rushed into release ten days before Halloween. But it’s not all bad – the second installment was actually considered a worthy, if unspectacular, follow-up by most, and at the very least it drove the incredibly stale Saw series running and screaming from the marketplace. Regardless, ongoing horror franchises don’t exactly have the best track record in their later installments, and this one has the stink of money-grubbing shamelessness written all over it. Let’s just hope it’s at least as good as part 2 – which is somewhat likely given that Tod Williams is returning to the director’s chair.

Odds: EVEN

Kudos to Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures for injecting some original fare into the marketplace right before Halloween. Dibbuk Box, helmed by acclaimed Danish director Ole Bornedal, is based on the intriguing real-life story of a haunted box sold through eBay (documented in an article written by LA Times reporter Leslie Gornstein) that left a trail of bizarre occurrences in its wake. While the production house has been rather uneven in their output overall, they made an inspired pick in Bornedal, and at the very least it’s something different. Debuting the movie in the thick of the crowded October horror season also shows Lionsgate has some confidence in the project. One thing to remember, though, is that Bornedal’s last brush with American moviemaking – the 1997 remake of his Danish film Nightwatch – was a stylish thriller that ultimately felt lost in translation. Let’s hope the second time’s a charm.

Odds: 7/2

While I’m not one to hate on something simply because of the demographic the studio is aiming for, the Twilight films thus far haven’t exactly inspired the greatest confidence. That being said, Eclipse was certainly something of an improvement on the horrendous New Moon, which I chalk up to the switch from Chris Weitz to David Slade as director. This time around we have Bill Condon – an A-list, Academy Award-winning filmmaker (actually for his Gods and Monsters screenplay) who brings at least a modicum of artistic respectability to the series. The thing of it is though, Condon isn’t exactly an auteur – and he couldn’t be in this situation even if he were, considering the tight leash Summit holds over anyone tasked with helming an installment of their most profitable franchise. In other words, they aren’t gonna let Condon run rampant, and given his history of delivering good, if artistically unadventurous, Oscar-bait movies, he probably wouldn’t have tried to anyway. So while this installment at least holds the promise of a darker undercurrent than the previous entries (that whole hybrid vampire birth thing), it’ll still be a middle-targeted PG-13 movie crafted for the relatively unsophisticated younger female audience that fell in love with the books in the first place. In other words – expect more of the same.

Odds: 10/1

When you think about it, this Planet of the Apes prequel can’t but be helped by the fact that Tim Burton’s 2001 remake was widely considered a bust – it would have to be pretty awful to sink to the same depths of popular opinion as that film. Rise of the Apes also has the benefit of a fresh director, Rupert Wyatt, whose 2008 prison-break thriller The Escapist garnered generally favorable buzz. In addition, it’s got a solid cast led by James Franco, Brian Cox, and Jonathan Lithgow, and the involvement of Peter Jackson’s f/x house WETA Digital, which will render photo-realistic apes to substitute for the real-life actors used in the previous films. Of course, the “monkey” makeup and costumes featured in the earlier movies were a part of their charm, so that element may be an automatic debit for many lovers of the franchise. Indeed, Rick Baker’s makeup work was actually one of the highlights of the 2001 version, and with that much CG there’s always the risk of the movie coming off like one enormous videogame. One more possible debit: 20th Century Fox, who famously meddled in Burton’s production (there’s a reason he never worked with the studio again) and is generally known for being a micro-manager with every director whose name isn’t James Cameron.

Odds: 3/1