There are plenty of vampire flicks on DVD this Halloween, but the best films feature the unlikeliest of all monsters: children.

Writer-director Paul Solet's feature debut, Grace, from Anchor Bay (www.anchorbayentertainment.com/; $26.97; rated R) is a doozy: The villain is a newborn baby who also happens to be a vampire.

Jordan Ladd stars as Madeline Matheson, a beautiful, pregnant young woman whose husband dies in a car crash. Refusing to believe the crash also killed her unborn child, Madeline decides to carry it to term.

In a strange turn of events, the baby girl springs back to life shortly after her birth. She seems a normal child at first, but soon Madeline discovers that the newborn would rather drink her blood than formula.

Don't worry, there are plenty of other films available this season:

Halloween favorites

Deadgirl: Unrated Director's Cut from Dark Sky Films ($24.98; www.darkskyfilms.com; not rated) is an equally creepy film about teenagers' capacity for evil. Codirected by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, it is about two teens who discover what appears to be a dead body in an abandoned mental asylum. But the girl, chained to a table, is alive, and as the boys discover after they beat and shoot her, she cannot die.

The film explores how much people will give in to their most sadistic impulses when given the opportunity. The answer isn't pretty.

The controversial psycho-kid feature Orphan from Warner Home Video (www.warnerbros.com or www.wbshop.com; $28.98 DVD; $35.99 Blu-ray; rated R) features stellar turns by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard who are taken in by a scheming monster disguised as a sweet orphaned girl. You may anticipate the twist ending, but it'll still creep you out.

The creep factor is off the charts in British-born helmer David Gregory's shock-o-rama, Plague Town from Dark Sky Films (www.darkskyfilms.com or http://plaguetown.com/; $24.98; not rated). When a group of young tourists who are lost in the countryside, take shelter in a remote village, they find themselves on the home turf of a band of vicious, mutant children. The visuals are stunning and inventive, especially when it comes to the kids. One pretty girl, for instance, has buttons (you know, from a shirt or a blazer) instead of eyes.

Thankfully, she seems nice.

Vampire fans looking for something, um, more vampiric than Twilight can turn to two releases based on the brilliant 2000 Japanese feature-length anime, Blood: The Last Vampire.

The English-language live-action film, Blood: The Last Vampire, from Sony (www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/; $24.96 DVD; $34.95 Blu-ray; Rated R), stars Gianna Jun as Saya, a half-demon, half-human vampire hunter who looks like a cute teenage girl. The film relies too heavily on CGI effects, but it's a hoot.

Saya fans will love the five-disc box set, Blood+: Part Two, also from Sony ($119.95; not rated), a collection of 25 episodes from the animated TV show inspired by the original anime.

Looking for unique, innovative fare? Ghost House Underground, a series of four from Lionsgate (www.lionsgateshop.com/; $19.98 each; rated R), is a must-see. Children, by British director Tom Shankland, is an intense shocker about prepubescent kids who catch a virus that turns them into vicious killers.

There are more crazy kids - cannibal kids, this time! - in Offspring, an adaptation of the Jack Ketchum novel.

Val Kilmer stars in the environmental thriller The Thaw, as a scientist who discovers a deadly species of parasite deep in the Arctic ice.

Director Eduardo Sánchez, of Blair Witch Project fame, explores Asian horror styles in the deeply felt horror-tragedy Seventh Moon, a ghost story set in a remote region of China.

It took nearly 20 years, but the sci-fi/horror classic Hardware: 2-Disc Limited Edition from legendary South African indie filmmaker Richard Stanley is finally out on DVD from Severin Films (www.severin-films.com/; $29.95 DVD; $34.95 Blu-ray; not rated).

Released in 1990, two years before Dust Devil (Stanley's other cult classic), Hardware is set in a post-apocalyptic urban hell ruled by a tyrannical, fascistic government. It stars a very young Dylan McDermott and the terrific Stacey Travis as lovers whose flat is besieged by a malfunctioning RoboCop-esque killer 'bot.