creature feature

“Jaws” was not the first of its kind; it just perfected the creature feature formula, where audiences are teased and titillated by glimpses of what they fear, before being treated to a gratuitous scare that rewards them for their patience.

Almost sixty years before the classic 1975 creature feature "Jaws" scared moviegoers away from the beaches, President Woodrow Wilson infamously declared a "war on sharks" to retaliate against the species for a series of New Jersey shore attacks.

On one level, “Infested” is a well-worn, thoroughly efficient creature feature with sleek effects and pell-mell pacing.

Other highlights: “No Overnight Parking,” Meg Swertlow’s bloody dark comedy starring Alyssa Milano as a woman who faces an assailant in a parking lot; “Sucker,” Alix Austin’s creature feature about sisters attacked by a life-sucking leech; and “The Erl King,” Genevieve Kertesz’s folk-horror fairy tale about a girl who learns that even magical woods house smooth-talking jerks.

To conserve their moisture or maintain their temperature, anywhere from five to 50,000 blackworms intermingle to form writhing blobs seemingly right out of a creature feature.