Friday the 13th seems to be the perfect date to open a couple of films about amazingly bad luck. One features an angry, green, hulking mutant, and the other deals with a plague of sorts, which endangers the entire population of the northeast United States.

M. Night Shyamalan and Friday the 13th seem to go together like nightmares and Elm Street; it’s no accident that his first suspense film since the disastrous Lady in the Water is released on this traditionally frightening date.  Two years later, Fox is taking a chance on Shyamalan’s first R-rated film, and everyone is wondering if he’s still "got it." Will it be another masterpiece like The Sixth Sense, or a disappointment like The Village? Shyamalan claims he made the film “A 90 minute paranoia movie – an intense, intense experience…like a B movie, but the best Bmovie you’ve ever seen.” George Lucas made a similar B-movie comment about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The Incredible Hulk is also charging onto screens nationwide, in a sort of sequel, not a re-imagining of the Hulk movie Ang Lee made about five years ago. This time around Edward Norton, instead of Eric Bana, plays the ill-fated Bruce Banner, who turns mean, green and huge whenever he gets angry. Liv Tyler plays his love interest and Tim Roth plays a new foil, a special ops agent who wants to have his blood tainted in the same way as Banner so that he too can have super human strength. It’ll be interesting to see if The Incredible Hulk can stand out in a summer full of comic book superhero movies. As good as Iron Man was, our money is on the upcoming Dark Knight.

A much smaller but equally disturbing independent film is getting a limited release this weekend – that would be the eerie Quid Quo Pro, starring Nick Stahl, who fans might remember from Terminator 3, In the Bedroom, and HBO's Carnival. The mesmerizing Vera Farmiga (The Departed, Down to the Bone) also stars in this film, about a paraplegic radio host introduced to a very dark world where people go to outrageous lengths to feel the “special” experience of being incapacitated. If it sounds bizarre, it is, but it’s also certainly original.

It won’t be major competition for Universal’s Hulk, which is opening in about 3,505 theaters, or Fox’s The Happening, which plays in about 2,986 theaters. Their real competition will come from Kung Fu Panda, is still in more than 4,000 locations.