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Welcome to Trailer Hitch, BOP's look at the latest movie trailers to hit the Internet. This week: John C. Reilly sucks (blood), George Clooney hypnotizes a goat and Shauna MacDonald channels her inner Sigourney Weaver.

An Education – Opens October 9th

Nick Hornby isn't a favorite author of mine – whoops, I've probably already lost about half my audience on that admittance - BUT An Education, based on an autobiographical memoir of the same name that the Brit adapted to screen here, looks like it could be a pretty good flick. In it, Carey Mulligan plays a bright 17-year-old who falls for a man (Peter Sarsgaard) much older than she is. While her parents insist on her studying at Oxford, Jenny finds herself wanting to follow her new beau, who introduces her to a different kind of education – one of late nights, classical concerts and new friends.

Grade: B-

The Vampire's Assistant – Opens October 23rd

With vampires coming in comparatively hotter than anything else these days – yes, even more so than Megan Fox – it comes at no surprise that yet another book series is making the jump from print to screen. This time around it's The Saga of Darren Shan, a tetralogy of trilogies (consult a dictionary if you're lost) that originally appeared in bookstores back in early 2000. The tetralogy's first trilogy, Vampire Blood, is the basis of Universal's The Vampire's Assistant, scheduled to hit theaters conveniently before Halloween.

Sadly there are no Edward Cullens or Bill Comptons lurking in the shadows of The Vampire's Assistant. Instead, we get the great John C. Reilly, who plays a vamp named Larten Crepsley who turns a 16-year-old boy (Chris Massoglia) into one of the undead. Though Reilly doesn't fully convince me that he's a bloodsucker at heart in the trailer, I'm willing to bet a feature's worth of Reilly, vampires and blood will have me believing otherwise.

The Vampire's Assistant doesn't look as exciting or flashy as a typical True Blood ep (or even New Moon, which comes out a few weeks later), but I'll probably be willing to give this one a shot since I've become such a vampire whore as of late.

Grade: B

The Men Who Stare at Goats – Opens November 6th

Oh. My. You just can't make this stuff up. Apparently the U.S. military spent money on a program in which special forces agents were trained to use their psychic, paranormal powers on the battlefield. It's all detailed in Jon Ronson's 2004 tell-all that carries the same name as Overture Films' upcoming The Men Who Stare at Goats. The title, of course, refers to attempts by these special agents to kill goats simply by staring at them.

And that's why the Iraq War isn't playing out as well as we would have liked.

The quirky dark comedy carries a stellar cast including Kevin Spacey, George Clooney (playing a special agent) and Ewan McGregor as a down-and-out reporter who uncovers the truth behind the ridiculous program. Jeff Bridges, who looks hilarious here by the way, rounds out the cast.

Expect this one to win some prizes if the finished product translates as well as it does in trailer format.

Grade: A

Armored – Opens December 4th

If you think you're gonna be in the mood for some wholesome, family fun entertainment during the winter holiday, steer very clear of Armored, an actioner starring the likes of Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne and Jean Reno to be released on December 4th. In this one, a young car guard, Ty (Columbus Short), is convinced by his superiors to empty a truck carrying part of their $42 million payload. Conflict erupts at the ensuing scene when a cop (Milo Ventimiglia) is shot by the vet guards and Ty does his best to save him.

I generally feel the same about action movies no matter who's in ‘em and what they're about. I generalize a bit here, but I find them lacking serious amounts of substance, characters and many of the other necessary elements that, in my opinion, make a good movie. Armored is no different. Actually had it not been for its impressive cast and producer (Sam Raimi), Armored may have opened direct-to-DVD.

Grade: D

The Descent: Part 2 – Opens TBA

Consider what a generic sequel to Brit horror film, The Descent, would look like: Terrified women, dark crawl spaces, plenty of screamin' and those limber cave-people. That's all it really takes, and that's all you really get treated with here. The predictability of this frightens me, in that the second chapter may do nothing more than rehash what we already saw a couple years ago. And really, what's the fun in that?

The original Descent was (for the most part) an intelligent horror-thriller that served up plenty of chills over the course of its 100-minute runtime. Sure, much of the limelight was on those freakin' things in the caves. Yet the spotlight was also shared with the women who infringe upon their property. Especially Shauna MacDonald's Sarah, who transforms into a Sigourney-Weaver-in-Aliens super monster by the time she escapes from the hole.

Her character underwent real change, and I praised her for it, as well as the movie, which totally rocked. I doubt this sequel will add anything to the discussion.

Grade: D+