The terror, the terror Hollywood’s year of fear, real and imagined BY PETER KEOUGH

Movies might not predict the future, but they do reflect a mood. Some years, they reflect the audience’s desires and guilt. Other years, they suggest an overriding anxiety about the future and offer illusory solace. This seems a year of fear, of threats real and imagined.

Perhaps emboldened by the success of Fahrenheit 9/11, some of the films in the coming year confront the real-life terrors of the outside world in documentaries and fiction. Some take on domestic or personal uneasiness in dramas and comedies that enact our fears of loss, loneliness, and adult responsibility. And many films express our angst through the reliable horror genre, which indulges our deepest forebodings and purges them. In various ways, 2005 looks to be the year that Hollywood raises the terror code to Orange.

January

We begin the year with the worst genocide in recent memory. Director Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda (January 7) relates the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who courageously offered refuge to more than 1000 Tutsis fleeing massacre at the hands of the Hutus. Is it a genuine glimpse into the horror of violence and apathy? Or an attempt to placate the consciences of those who looked away when 900,000 were butchered? Either way, Don Cheadle has been getting Oscar notices for his performance as Rusesabagina.

Moving to fears closer to home — if further back in time — there’s first-time director Niels Mueller’s The Assassination of Richard Nixon (January 14). It relates the true story of poor schmuck Sam Byck (here called "Bicke"), who tried to set things right by putting away the newly re-elected, warmongering Republican president. A paean to feelings of powerlessness following the election of 2004? Or a half-baked rehash of Taxi Driver? Either way, Sean Penn has gotten high praise for portraying Byck/Bicke.

Few things get the blood running cold like the specter of pedophilia. Director Nicole Kassell makes her debut with The Woodsman (January 7), the story of a child molester’s return to society after a lengthy prison spell. Is it an uncompromising look at the human face behind a monstrous crime? Or knee-jerk liberal coddling of the depraved? Either way, Kevin Bacon has gotten raves for his performance as the criminal.

In past films, Clint Eastwood has belted a woman or two. Maybe he’s making amends with Million Dollar Baby (January 7), in which he plays an aging boxing manager who trains a prospective women’s champion. Female empowerment? Or cheap thrills for those who like to watch women pound each other? Hillary Swank as the pug has already been chosen Best Actress by the Boston Society of Film Critics.

Anti-Semitism has long troubled humanity. Just ask William Shakespeare, whose The Merchant of Venice (January 14) has long baffled directors. Michael Radford (Il Postino) takes his best shot, with Al Pacino demanding his pound of flesh, and then some, as Shylock.

The impotence of age and the treachery of children are anxieties familiar to Shakespeare, and In Good Company (January 14) takes up a King Lear–like premise as Dennis Quaid plays a middle-aged executive whose much-younger boss (Topher Grace) hits on his daughter (Scarlett Johansson). Paul Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie) directs.

And, of course, nothing disrupts domestic harmony like death. Just ask Michael Keaton in TV director Geoffrey Sax’s White Noise (January 14). He plays a widower whose deceased wife is trying to communicate with him through electrical appliances — a gold mine of product placement, if nothing else.

Feel rattled yet? You probably need the steadying tough love of Coach Carter (January 14). Samuel L. Jackson takes on the role of the real-life coach who turns around an inner-city basketball team, athletically and academically. Director Thomas Carter (presumably no relation) makes his big-screen debut.

For some, the screen holds no greater terror than an Andrew Lloyd Webber adaptation. Beware, then, Joel Schumacher’s version of The Phantom of the Opera (January 21), starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum. And how’s this for a scary thought? You return to the family home after your mother’s funeral and find it occupied by John Travolta as an alcoholic professor. Scarlett Johansson makes the most of it in first-time director Shainee Gabel’s A Love Song for Bobby Long (January 21).

Time for a reality check. Every year the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (January 21) offers poignant, illuminating, and cogent features and documentaries about problems we’d rather not contemplate. But just because they deal with serious issues doesn’t mean they’re not entertaining. It’s at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Coolidge Corner Theatre; don’t pass it by. And if you do, you still have a chance to see one of the more acclaimed offerings, which opens the following week: Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman’s Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids (January 28), which shows how art and compassion can indeed redeem the fallen and wretched of the earth.

But most filmgoers prefer the imaginary. Maybe they’ll change their minds after seeing Hide and Seek (January 28). Robert De Niro plays the requisite widower who’s troubled when his daughter’s (Dakota Fanning) relationship with her imaginary playmate takes a nasty turn. John Polson (Swimfan) directs.