Horror movies have no single season: Hollywood wants to scare you all year round. So there are plenty of guts ’n’ gore and things that go bump in the night in the Summer of 2016.

Seven scary horror titles are on the bloody docket at this point (and distributors always manage to sneak a couple or more in at the last minute). So freak out to these ungodly flicks:

1 — The Darkness (May 13): Kevin Bacon stars in a terrifying story of how vacationers to the Grand Canyon risk returning home with a supernatural force that will wreck havoc in their lives.

2 — The Conjuring 2 (June 10): The Warrens are back investigating poltergeists, this time in England. What could possibly go wrong?

3 — The Shallows (June 29):Jaws redux — Blake Lively is a surfer girl trying to evade a great white shark.

4 — The Purge: Election Year (July 1): The third in the Purge series plunges into a fictional presidential race; but no one would be surprised if bombastic Donald Trump came out in favour of his own purge in real life!

5 — Lights Out (July 22): Based on his popular short, David F. Sandberg’s feature is about a supernatural entity that is only visible in the dark.

6 — Don’t Breathe (Aug. 16):A home invasion targeting a wealthy blind man in Detroit goes terribly wrong … for the perpetrators.

7 — Patient Zero (TBD 2017): When a pandemic turns most of mankind into violent beings called the Infected, a uniquely gifted man leads the crusade for a cure.

ANIMATED MOVIES TO WATCH

Pixar Animation Studios already has 16 successful feature films on its list of credits, with number 17 coming to thousands of theatres near you this summer.

The new film is Finding Dory, a long-awaited sequel to Finding Nemo (2003), although the storyline is set just six months after the happy end of the original. One thing besides quality animation is guaranteed: The box office for Finding Nemo will push Pixar’s total worldwide take well past the $10 billion mark (spread over 21 years). It sits at a robust $9.7 billion at the moment, thanks to the decent $332 million added by The Good Dinosaur late last year.

What that tells me is that — under the guidance of their animation guru John Lasseter — Pixar’s creative people are supremely adept at populist storytelling as well as the technical aspects of digital animation. Given that Lasseter also oversees the Walt Disney Animation Studios, he is creating a remarkable personal legacy as the boss man. The most recent Disney animation, Zootopia, is both a great movie and a $909 million mega-hit.

So there is no hesitation here to feel optimistic about Finding Dory. But it will have plenty of competition in the family-friendly market this summer. Counting two hybrids — live action mixed heavily with digital animation — there are eight animations in the mix. Here they are:

1 — The Angry Birds Movie (May 20): The video game craze may have abated, but the movie is a hot property this month. Flightless birds prepare for an invasion of pigs with hot-head Red (voiced Jason Sudeikis) in the middle of the kerfuffle. The porkers are led by Leonard (Bill Hader).

2 — Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (June 3): It may be a stretch to call this animation, yet Dave Green’s movie is obviously a hybrid of live action and CGI characters created through motion capture. Out of the Shadows is a sequel to the 2014 movie, which did better than expected with $493 million worldwide. So a Ninja sequel was inevitable.

3 — Finding Dory (June 17):Writer-director Andrew Stanton reprises his duties after bringing the buoyancy to Finding Nemo. The new story is built around Dory the Pacific regal blue tang, of course. And Ellen DeGeneres is back to give the absent-minded fish her signature voice. Six months after Finding Nemo, Dory finally remembers her childhood origins and sets out with fishy friends to find her family.

4 — The Secret Life of Pets (July 8):Chris Renaud, co-creator of the Despicable Me movies and an Oscar-winner for his Scrat short, No Time for Nuts, turns to a fresh project. This movie concerns the challenging lives of a motley crew of pets in Manhattan. Many are neglected or abandoned, most are resentful, and pet owners will be made to pay. In comic ways, of course.

5 — Ice Age: Collision Course (July 22): The fifth in the franchise compels our familiar heroes to save the planet after Scrat’s latest acorn adventure sets off a cosmic catastrophe. Familiar voices return, including Ray Romano as Manny the Woolly Mammoth.

6 — Sausage Party (Aug. 12):In a wild adult survival comedy, Frank the Hot Dog (voiced by Seth Rogen) leads a sausage revolt to escape the cooking pot. Rogen co-wrote the animation with his longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg (and others). Warning to parents: Do not take the kids!

7 — Pete’s Dragon (Aug. 12): Note: This is another hybrid of live action and CGI animation, in this case of the fabled dragon Elliott, whom young Pete befriends in the forest. The charming original was a hybrid of live action/traditional hand-drawn animation and the strong story deserves a second chance to shine with modern technology.

Twitter: @Bruce_Kirkland

BKirkland@postmedia.com