This week’s movie releases

A sci-fi comedy with a Ghostbusters-flavored setup, The Watch stars Ben Stiller as a friendless shop manager who assembles surbabanites Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade (of TV British sitcom The IT Crowd and director of last week's Submarine) into a neighborhood watch group. But the quartet soon gets more than they bargained for when they uncover an alien plot threatening not just their town but the entire planet. Co-written by Knocked Up star Seth Rogen, it all sounds pretty promising on paper, but that didn't stop critics roundly rubbishing it upon its US release.

Italian director Matteo Garrone first grabbed international attention in 2008 with Gomorrah, a grim drama based on the book by journalist Roberto Saviano that lifted the lid on Neapolitan mafia life. For his follow-up, however, he's gone for something theoretically a shade lighter. Reality is a comedy-drama that points the camera back on the world of reality television as a wheeler-dealer fishmonger finds his life transformed by an appearance on the Italian version of Big Brother. Like Gomorrah, the film is based on a true story and picked up the Grand Prix (runner-up prize) at the Cannes Film Festival.

Also with Italian blood - buckets of it, in fact - is Dracula 3D from horror king Dario Argento. A fast-and-loose take on Bram Stoker's classic, it features Germany's Thomas Kretschmann as the Count, Rutger Hauer, Spanish-Italian actress Miriam Giovanelli and the director's own daughter, Asia Argento.

Aiming for more scares, Norwegian horror Babycall (known as The Monitor in the US) stars Prometheus's Noomi Rapace as a mother who relocates herself and her eight-year-old son to a secret address to get away from her abusive husband. Frightened they'll be found, she installs a baby monitor in her son's room to keep an eye on him, but it soon starts emitting screams from an unknown source.

Literary adventures

The latest from French director François Ozon, In the House was the winner of the Golden Shell at this year's San Sebastián Film Festival. Inspired by Spanish writer Juan Mayorga's play The Boy in the Last Row, it's the story of a jaded schoolteacher (Fabrice Luchini) who eggs on a star pupil's (Ernst Umhauer) not always ethical literary adventures.

From Spain, Todo es silencio, directed by José Luis Cuerda and based on the novel by Manuel Rivas, is a story of three childhood friends set against the backdrop of the Galicia drug trade.

Meanwhile, Buscando a Eimish, directed by Ana Rodríguez Rosell, stars Óscar Jaenada as a man discovering the past of his estranged girlfriend as he journeys across Europe to reunite with her.