Not Too Scary: Frightening Films That Are Rated PG-13

"The Ring," directed by Gore Verbinski, is great fun. Creepy, with great actors doing fantastic work in a well-done American remake of a famous J-Horror film. Starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, and Brian Cox, it gets the job done with elegant visuals and imagery. The scene on the ferry sticks in your head long after the movie ends, and the now famous scene with the child with long dark hair obscuring her face still brings a chill.

"Drag Me To Hell" is a Sam Raimi film you can watch with the whole family. While some of his other films are known for their buckets of gore and blood, this PG-13 screamer takes a more subtle approach but doesn't lack in scare factor. It stars Alison Lohman, Justin Long, and Lorna Raver and seems like a throwback to the old Universal horror films made between the 1930s and 1950s.

"The Boogeyman" is based on the Stephen King short story, which is good news. It is directed by Rob Savage, who made the screenlife Zoom horror film "Host," and stars Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair, and David Dastmalchian. It's brand new, so you don't have to worry about too many people already having seen it, and you can always take a trip to the movie theater to take it in.

"The Haunting In Connecticut" is a film directed by Peter Cornwell that stars Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner, Martin Donovan, and Elias Koteas. The cast is solid and tells the tale of a family taking a child to the hospital for cancer treatments who rents a house to be closer to the hospital. The man renting it offers the first month free if they will take it off his hands immediately. That should have been the family's first clue that all was not well with the house.

A horror movie? From Bong Joon-ho, Academy Award-winning, South Korean director of "Parasite"? Indeed. "The Host" is a monster movie about a mutated creature that attacks after being created by the release of formaldehyde into the Han River by an American. This is based on an actual incident of chemical dumping. It stars Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, and Park Hae-il. As the family of Hyun-seo attempts to save her from the beast, time is running out.

"Tremors" is a terrific monster movie with charming performances, humor, and disturbing moments of horror that are good but not so harsh that you feel you might need therapy later. Ron Underwood directs it, who also directed the family film "City Slickers," and stars a hilarious cast, including Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, and Reba McEntire.

We have even more monsters for your PG-13 horror movie night, but let's make it a found-footage movie this time. "Cloverfield" is directed by Matt Reeves, probably best known for his recent film "The Batman," and starring Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, and Michael Stahl-David. Young New Yorkers are caught in an attack by a giant monster and the parasites that cling to its body and attack people. As they try to escape before Manhattan is destroyed, survival becomes more difficult.

"The Exorcism of Emily Rose" was directed by Scott Derrickson, whose most recent film is "The Black Phone," and stars Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Campbell Scott, Colm Feore, and Jennifer Carpenter. It tells the story of a failed exorcism that resulted in the subject's death. The exorcist has been taken to court for negligent homicide, and flashbacks reveal how things went wrong. The plot of the film is also based on a real-life incident.

"I Am Legend" is based on the Richard Matheson novel and is directed by Francis Lawrence, who also directed "The Hunger Games" and "Constantine." It is about a vampire apocalypse where a genetically engineered virus mutates most of the world's population into vampiric cannibals (same thing). Will Smith stars as Robert Neville, who stayed behind on the island of Manhattan when it was evacuated and is still trying to cure the virus with a dog as his only companion.

"Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" is based on the children's book of the same name and directed by André Øvredal. One significant advantage of adding this film to your scary movie night is that it is a film with kids as the stars who experience some frightening things. In the movie, a stolen book reveals each story where one horrifying scare follows another as the children race to discover why this is happening.