Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Here comes a new cult favourite. It certainly is a movie that this particular writer will have to watch again to get a greater sense of its place, both in the horror genre and cinema itself.

Elijah Wood and Ben Wheatley lend their producer credits to The Greasy Strangler, which on first impressions appears to be influenced by the likes of early John Waters and the best of Troma. It certainly doesn’t mince words or ideas and at a fair ninety minutes or so will certainly be one to look at again and again to deduce its ideas.

Geek Big Brayden lives with his father Big Ronnie in an L.A. shack, where they organise disco-themed tours of the local community with all manner of deceitful lies (one of the key phrases that comes out of their mouths is ‘Bullshit Artist’, which can be heard umpteen times throughout). Ronnie, however, does seem to have a fetish for excess grease on his food (a point that Gordon Ramsay would not take lightly in the grand scheme of things) which also provokes an extreme side-effect, transforming him into the titular ‘Greasy Strangler’ The relationship between father and son gets complicated when a big woman called Janet who they meet on one of their tours decides to go out with Brayden, much to the chagrin of Ronnie, who has also taken a fancy to Janet….

THE GREASY STRANGLER is a traditional gross-out comedy horror. It certainly was the strangest viewing experience I have had since the very first Human Centipede and American Mary at recent FrightFest. Although at times, the film is a little uneven in terms of performances and some repetitive dialogue, there is a rather peculiar charm within the film that provides sufficient attention to the intended audience, which is why I feel that in time the film will gain a suitable cult following amongst horror fans.

The use of the woman Janet is clearly a nod to Waters with people like Tracy in Hairspray and The Strangler himself is reminiscent of Troma’s The Toxic Avenger. There are some cheap and cheerful gore effects like the heady days of Re-Animator three decades before and you probably will not look at grease in the same way after viewing this film.

There is a lot of potential in the concept and is an example of a film that suffers from its low-budget foundation. I was expecting more laughs and extreme horror a la Evil Dead and Brain Dead in addition to that which is on show here. That said, there are some moments of gross sexual interaction that compensate and provide humour also.

On balance, though, The Greasy Strangler is a reasonable offering.

THE GREASY STRANGLER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JIM HOSKING / SCREENPLAY: TOBY HARVARD, JIM HOSKING / STARRING: MICHAEL ST. MICHAELS, SKY ELOBAR, ELIZABETH DE RAZZO / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 7TH (LIMITED), OCTOBER 10TH (DVD/VOD)

 

There have been plenty of films that have explored the relationship between mental illness and vampirism/Satanism, but Jason (Don’t You Recognise Me?) Figgis’ movie manages to avoid resorting to cliché and maintains a taut, terrifying edge throughout.

We’re thrown right into some harrowing events from the start, with Isabel (Mullen) being attacked on her way home by an almost rabid assailant (Travers). Isabel has had to struggle in her household for many years following the death of her mother. Her father tries his best, but she has siblings and has clearly had to take too much on at her own young adult age. She doesn’t mention anything about the attack to her father, but he begins to notice things are not quite right with her.

As Isabel gets drawn deeper into a disturbing cult of blood and violence, it not only becomes increasingly nightmarish but deeply tragic.

As Isabel becomes more reserved and isolated, some of her fellow students at her school have disappeared. The police (led by a gloriously acerbic Inspector played by Fleming) begin by interviewing Isabel’s former boyfriend, whose answers lead them to see Isabel as a person of interest.

The Ecstasy of Isabel Mann is packed with stunning cinematography (much praise to Alan Rogers) and often echoes the dreamlike work of the likes of Jean Rollin and Jess Franco (albeit in their more restrained, accessible moments). Although it’s incredibly brutal and bloody at times, it’s never portrayed in an exploitive, sordid fashion. We’re often plunged into a monochrome world, heightening the detachment of the lead character. One bloodletting montage is even set to a pleasant little pop song. Ironically, the juxtaposition actually works. Similarly, the score occasionally ventures into the oppressively experimental, adding to the overall brooding terror.

Isabel is clearly suffering and any horrendous (and trust us, they are appalling) acts she commits have an even deeper effect on her mental state. The subject is handled well and doesn’t resort to cliché or sensationalism.

Although only appearing in a smaller part, Darren Travers (one of the regular go-to actors Figgis uses) is as intense and mesmerising as ever, a bogeyman character that will haunt the nightmares of viewers for quite a while. Similarly, it’s rare to see such powerful acting from the young cast. Ellen Mullen is compulsive as Isabel, and even the youngest, Killian O’Farrell (Isabel’s brother Josh) impresses – particularly in once scene we can’t mention to keep it spoiler-free.

It may not be fast-paced enough for some, but it certainly rewards attentive viewers. It has a brooding atmosphere is punctuated with bursts of violence constantly keeps one on edge, right up to the lower-key climax.

THE ECSTASY OF ISABEL MANN / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JASON FIGGIS / STARRING: ELLEN MULLEN, NEILL FLEMING, MATTHEW TOMAN, DARREN TRAVERS / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 13TH (USA) TBC (UK)

 

Juan Piquer Simón is an unheralded icon of low budget horror movies. The Spanish director was responsible for some of the most wonderful trashy horror flicks of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but it was the latter decade where he’d unleash his masterpieces: 1982’s slasher sleaze masterclass Pieces, and the topic of this review – Slugs (1988).

The impact of Jaws (1975) is still being felt on genre cinema, but it was during the aforementioned decades where its influence was at its apex; as evident with the slew of cheap and awesomely cheesy creature features that followed in its wake. Slugs might not be a blatant rip-off of Spielberg’s classic like say Grizzly (1976) or Piranha (1978), but it typifies the type of B level exploitation that thrived because of its existence. Plus, it’s one of the greatest movies about killer slugs ever made (although there are a couple of contenders to its throne if you’re prepared to slither into cinematic squalor and bask in it).

Based on the novel of the same name by Shaun Huston, the premise is simple: a small town is invaded by a swarm of slugs on a murderous rampage. What ensues is a series of slimy, gruesome deaths with a camp exploitative edge that will leave you grinning from ear to ear. It’s the epitome of cinematic junk food: tasty and bad for you in the best of ways.

With Slugs, all you’re getting is a gore-splattered good time. It’s as camp as camp can be with just the right amount of sleaze, but it boasts some outstanding gross out practical effects. The film is more than competently made, but it excels in being unabashed gratuitous entertainment that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but respects the horror genre enough to at least make you squirm.

Now that Slugs has received the Arrow treatment, it’s finally received the recognition it deserves and will light up the shelf of any cult movie collector. The film looks stunning with its brand new restoration, and the features are packed with entertaining interviews and audio commentaries. Slugs is a forgotten gem from the heyday of nature run amok flicks and it’s highly recommended.

Special Features: Audio Commentaries / Interviews / Original Trailer / Collector’s Booklet

SLUGS / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JUAN PIQUER SIMÓN / SCREENPLAY: JUAN PIQUER SIMÓN, RON GANTMAN / STARRING: MICHAEL GARFIELD, KIM TERRY, PHILIP MACHALE, EMILIO LINDER / RELAESE DATE: OUT NOW

There’s something about film festivals that induces far more extreme reactions than normal in audiences. When Bite premiered last year at Fantasia there were reports of people fainting, vomiting and requiring an ambulance be called. Which is great news for the marketers, because with reactions like that, you can’t not watch it. Advanced notoriety of the sickening revulsion a film causes is all well and good, but is the film itself actually worth watching? Short answer: yes.

Although as Bite begins it appears to be another found footage movie, rest assured that only its opening of an exotic pre-wedding holiday is shown in the dubious style, and the recording’s existence actually comes into play later in the film. During all this girl time the bride-to-be Casey is bitten by an unknown insect while swimming in an out of the way lagoon, an event that seems innocuous at first but is soon revealed to have unpleasant consequences for Casey and everyone around her.

Bite takes a little while to truly get going. The presentation of Casey’s relationship with her bland but enthusiastic fiancé Jonah slows the story, while her clashes with her prudish and perpetually judgemental future mother-in-law run a little close to caricature. However, these are necessary moments of character development and only minor niggles, and once out of the way the film’s strength of purpose comes to the fore, resulting in a body horror as much psychological as it is physical. It’s never investigated, let alone revealed, exactly what it was that bit Casey or why it caused her to begin a gradual transformation into an insectoid chimera, and in truth it’s not all that important. What matters is how her mind and body are being irrevocably altered and the journey of personal torture it forces her to undergo.

Before long, boils swell and begin oozing pus and ichor, her skin hardens into chitin, her teeth begin chattering in imitation of the clicking of an insect, and her eyes become empty and vacant as she searches for emotion she no longer feels as though it were a distant memory she can’t quite recall. The diminishment of her human life is fused with the insect influence in a particularly sickening dream sequence similar in theme and equally as disturbing as the one in The Fly, a film from which much of Bite’s inspiration appears to have been taken.

Like many creatures of classic monster movies, Casey is a tragic figure. A victim of circumstance through no fault of her own, she is forced into the role of villain as the metamorphosis into which she has been shackled forces her to become driven by inexorable biological urges she neither wants nor can control. Although she is driven to ever more become the monster that her increasingly grotesque appearance implies, rather than being consumed by her new inhuman nature, it’s the selfishness and thoughtlessness of those around her that ultimately pushes her to the extremes. 

Bite will likely make you feel uneasy and more than a little nauseated, but the way it makes you suffer along with its protagonist instils a masochistic empathy that keeps you sympathetic towards her no matter how outwardly repulsive she becomes. 

BITE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: CHAD ARCHIBALD / SCREENPLAY: JAYME LAFOREST, CHAD ARCHIBALD / STARRING: ELMA BEGOVIC, JORDAN GRAY, ANNETTE WOZNIAK, DENISE YUEN, LAWRENE DENKERS / RELEASE DATE: 10TH OCTOBER

When a young Romanian housekeeper called Elena (Cosmina Stratan) becomes the live-in help to wealthy Danish couple Louise and Kasper (Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Peter Christoffersen), her plans are simple: she wants to make enough money to buy an apartment back home in Bucharest. Elena’s first impression of her new employers is that they’re an odd couple. They live without electricity in an isolated house beside a lake, and sickly Louise receives regular visits from a hippie-ish energy healer called Leo (Bjorn Andresen).

But, as their friendship develops, Louise makes Elena an offer she can’t refuse. Louise is unable to bear a child. If Elena will be their surrogate, they will buy her the apartment she longs for and she can return home as soon as the baby is born.

But Elena’s pregnancy rapidly turns into a nightmare. She has bad dreams, breaks out in a rash, wakes up with blood encrusted around her mouth. In fact, the transformation of Elena from happy healthy housekeeper to brooding wraith-like mother-to-be is jarring. Is the baby inside Elena something evil? Is that why, when Kasper and Louise’s friends arrive for dinner, their young son punches the pregnant Elena in the stomach – because he senses something bad slumbering within her? Or is Elena suffering from some kind of prenatal psychosis? Even when the baby is born, and Kasper reacts violently towards it, could this be explained away as a post-partum aberration or is something much more diabolically sinister afoot?

It’s hard to totally recommend Shelley but equally as hard to discount it. Although occasionally gorgeous to look at (the cinematography, courtesy of Sturla Brandth Grovlen and Nadim Carlsen, is excellent), it is sparse on both dialogue and action, with a niggling sense that the actual story isn’t the one we’re watching onscreen. All of the atmosphere lies somewhere between Martin Dirkov‘s discordant electronica score and Ali Abbasi‘s off-kilter direction, both of which keep us neatly on edge without our ever really knowing why.

Shelley is worth taking a peek at if you’re into demon baby movies with oddly stilted characters (although Andrzej Zulawski’s wonderful Possession still rules that particular roost) but keep your expectations low. In fact, if anything, this is probably what Larry Cohens It’s Alive! would have looked like if that film had dropped the violence, dropped the mutant baby, abandoned its crew in the woods and been directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Strange, but not nearly strange enough, and yet also weirdly fascinating.

SHELLEY / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ALI ABBASI / SCREENPLAY: ALI ABBASI, MAREN LOUISE KÄEHNE / STARRING: ELLEN DORRIT PETERSEN, COSMINA STRATAN, PETER CHRISTOFFERSEN, BJORN ANDRESEN / RELEASE DATE: 10TH OCTOBER

Greg McLean’s 2005 Wolf Creek certainly made a splash upon its arrival, thrusting the vicious, maniacal Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) and his penchant for butchering tourists in to the hearts of many a horror hound. A slightly disappointing sequel followed in 2013, but now Mick’s back with his own mini-series… although things may not be going all his way this time out.

Much like we’ve seen in the two movies, this six-episode affair sees Mick patrolling the Australian outback looking to indulge in his favourite pastime – slaughtering tourists. And as luck would have it, the terrifying Taylor happens across an American family who have made the ill-judged decision to pull up in the outback to take in some of the charms of Australia’s desolate landscape. In typical Mick Taylor fashion, it doesn’t take long for this family to meet their maker as Mick dispatches them in a matter of seconds. That is, however, apart from the troubled teenage daughter of the group, Eve (Lucy Fry). Managing to just about survive the attack that left the rest of her family dead, Eve now has one thing on her mind: revenge.

To describe it in the simplest of terms, the Wolf Creek mini-series is essentially a six-hour revenge story as we see the tables turned and the hunter become the hunted. In Eve, we see a journey from traumatised victim to somebody who is fearless once the realisation hits home that she has nothing else to lose. Along the way, of course, there are plenty of faces who pop up – some to aide her, some to cause her further torment – but the endgame is simply to find Mick Taylor and exact some cold-blooded revenge for the death of her family. As ever, though, Mick is at the top of his game and won’t be making it easy for Eve.

In this mini-series, we’ve been given something that is truly stunning to view; the desolate, vacuous feel of the outback being a pleasure to take in, with the delightful cinematography and direction likely to leave you feeling as if you’re actually coming down with heatstroke. Added to this, the score from Burkhard von Dallwitz only furthers the feeling of desperation and desolation that drips over Wolf Creek like a dirty, sweaty rag. But at its core, Wolf Creek is about the storytelling and the performances.

As Eve, Lucy Fry brings a multi-layered performance that’s a true joy to behold. This is a character who is dealing with immense guilt – it was her drug addiction that saw her family decide to embark on an Australian vacation – and remorse, yet she soon comes to realise that her life now has a new purpose: to exact revenge for the atrocity dealt out to her and her family. From a timid victim who sees the menacing memory of Mick Taylor at every turn, to a balls-to-the-wall shit-kicking survivor, Fry dazzles and marks herself out as a talent to keep an eye on. And in all of this, she’s helped out and guided by Sullivan Hill (Dustin Clare), a cop who has Eve’s best interests in mind but who also has his own wish to take down the monster who has slaughtered so many in the Australian outback. Then there’s the brutal murderer himself, with John Jarrett on ever-boisterous form as the calculating, abusive and clinical Mick, again making the character seem like a well-tanned, grizzled Freddy Krueger in how he takes such pleasure in what he does.

Wolf Creek may drag just a tad during its middle, with the story at that time feeling like it maybe doesn’t warrant six whole episodes, but the tension and carnage is soon picked up as the mini-series goes headlong into its conclusion – and in fairness, the slower-paced second and third episodes actually feel warranted in hindsight when looking back at the series as a whole.

Whilst many felt that Wolf Creek 2 was a down step for the Wolf Creek franchise, this six-episode mini-series is a bloody, brutal, rip-roaring return to form.

Special Features: Six featurettes

WOLF CREEK – THE COMPLETE FIRST SERIES / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: GREG MCLEAN, TONY TILSE / SCREENPLAY: PETER GAWLER, GREG MCLEAN, FELICITY PACKARD / STARRING: JOHN JARRATT, LUCY FRY, DUSTIN CLARE, ANDY MCPHEE, JESSICA TOVEY, DAMIAN DE MONTEMAS / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 10TH

Big
old houses. On the one hand, great – impress your mates with all that space to
spread themselves about, have fantastic parties, loads of room for guests at
Christmas and whole rooms to dedicate to various aspects of your science fiction
and fantasy collection, including luxurious wooden shelf-space to house all of your
copies of STARBURST magazine dating back to 1977. So yes, very cool indeed. But
then there’s those nights when you’re all on your lonesome with the whole
darned place to yourself and there’s a howling wind outside and strange
creaking noises echoing down the stairs…

An unnamed young woman, nervous as a dormouse,
arrives at a giant New York mansion said to be the oldest in the city.  She is applying for a job as a Caretaker to
the property while the ‘Madame’ of the house is away. All seems well for the
appointment, pending references of course, but there’s just that one pesky
thing to be imparted; the previous Caretaker committed suicide by hurling
herself off the balcony. So not a major issue then.

This is a film student’s
nirvana; director Mickey Keating (Carnage
Park) clearly loves his Polanski but there are also pungent aromas of De
Palma and Kubrick wafting around the piece.  The keyword here is madness; it infests every
frame and totally dictates the movie’s style; one only has to see ‘Darling’s googly-eyed
interview with the lady of the house (a nice cameo from Sean Young) to clock
just how well leading lady Lauren Ashley Carter has nailed the nutter gene.  As well as the obvious parallels with
Catherine Deneuve’s peerless turn in Repulsion,
there’s a giant kiss to Kubrick’s controversial
twist on The Shining; the Overlook is
supposed to turn Jack Torrance mad but as soon as we see Jack Nicholson driving
up to the hotel we know he’s crazed already.

Keating hit gold when he found
the old mansion location for this movie. Originally intended for a more modern
setting, plans apparently changed when Lauren Ashley Carter (did we say how good
she is in this?) told him about the giant gaff owned by a family for whom she
walked dogs. Bingo!  Just as the famous
old Bradbury Building transformed the atmosphere of the classic Outer Limits
segment Demon With A Glass Hand and
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, so this
piece of NYC real estate proves a formidable character in its own right; the
stuff of nightmares in fact.

Darling is a fun ride if you like your psycho-thrillers spiced with classic
influences but could have taken a further tip from Polanski and eased back a
notch (or three) on the showmanship. Yes, we dig all the references and the
black and white photography is starkly beautiful, but the over-use of jarring
synaptic flash-shots  and  garish colour title cards before each portentously-named
‘chapter’ smack of too much time spent tinkering around in post-production. Similarly
overcooked is the scenario; with the main character clearly out of her gourd
from the off, the bleakly imposing old house is more than enough to trigger the
events that follow; the Amityville-style supernatural layer that’s added on
feels redundant.

So yes, a more stripped-back, less self-consciously
referential film exists under all of the pyrotechnic ‘technique’ on show but
this is still an accomplished work anchored by a mesmeric leading performance.

DARLING /  CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MICKEY KEATING / STARRING: LAUREN ASHLEY CARTER, SEAN YOUNG, BRIAN MORVANT, LARRY FESSENDEN, JOHN SPEREDAKOS / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 24TH 

Laura is the
definitive popular girl, surrounded by grounded friends, a hunky surfer
boyfriend and a social media friend-count that spirals eternally upwards with
every heavily photographed and posted night out. Great grades, a supportive
parent and a bright future also back up Laura’s picture-perfect life… until she
meets Marina. The mousy goth girl skulks as the back of class, watching Laura
from afar while browsing her online timeline until she finally plucks up the
courage to send that all-important friend request.

Dammit
Laura’s a good Samaritan too, and when she sees Marina’s request – registering
at the same time that the loner has literally 0 friends online – she accepts.
It’s a decision which movie plotting requires to be a very, very bad one.

As Laura’s
birthday approaches, she brushes off the eager Marina to hang with her real
friends, evoking a bile-filled confrontation the next day. With the only
natural course of action being to click that ‘unfriend’ button, Laura does so,
propelling things from bad to worse in every sense imaginable.

Welcome to a
completely different movie, where it turns out that Marina was a witch who has
propelled herself via a grizzly suicide into some otherworldly tech hell from
which she can take out Laura’s friends one by one, destroying her online
presence until she has… wait for it… 0 friends. Attempts at scares and
old-school movie jumps ensue.

This really
does feel like two entirely separate films. For the most part, the film begins
promisingly as a cautionary tale about the powers (and drawbacks) of social
media. Every character is continually online, almost living through their
profiles and it’s shocking to see from the outside what a detrimental effect having
their online presence messed with has on their ‘real’ lives. But then it all
just gets a bit silly.

With the
first half of the film set up as more of a psychological thriller, the swift
shuttle to supernatural town is an uncomfortable one that feels neither natural
nor compelling. The horror is far too contrived and predictable and my God the
pacing is atrocious. By the end of the movie – and an ending which utterly
destroys any credibility that the film had built towards by that point – you’d
quite happily bash your own head against the wall and save spooky Marina the
bother.

This was
never going to get a ‘love’ although it might have got a ‘like’ but alas this
confused thriller/horror/drama instead gets one of those sad smileys with a
little tear because it could have been so much better.

FRIEND REQUEST / CERT: 15 DIRECTOR: SIMON VERHOEVEN / SCREENPLAY : SIMON VERHOEVEN, PHILIP KOCH, MATTHEW BALLEN / STARRING: ALYCIA DEBNAM-CAREY, WILLIAM MOSELEY, CONNOR PAOLO, BRIT MORGAN, LIESL AHLERS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

Paths
of Glory is a 1957 World War 1 drama based on a true story, and its release on
blu-ray is a reminder that Full Metal Jacket wasn’t the only great war film
made by Stanley Kubrick.

When an
ambitious general is offered promotion if he’ll have his men sent out on a
suicide mission to capture a German held hill for France, he ignores the advice
of his stoic and honourable Colonel Dax, played by Kirk Douglas, not to go
through with the mission. As the men leave the trenches, it becomes clear that
they have no chance of advancement and retreat. The furious General blunders
his way through the situation trying to save face, and career, and orders that
three men be chosen at random for trial and execution as cowards. It is up to
Dax to defend them, but the need to provide scapegoats and maintain the
hierarchy of command soon supersedes ideas of justice and morality.

There’s
so much to admire about Paths of Glory. As a war film, it’s blisteringly moving
in its portrayal of futility of, as Wilfred Owen described it, ‘the pity of
war’. And what’s remarkable in that is the fact that we never meet ‘the enemy’,
with the entire story being told about the French army. There isn’t a German
soldier in it and that’s part of the point. Here, the enemy is war itself, made
more corrupt by personal ambition and the need to maintain class order. Fight
and be killed. Don’t fight and your own side will kill you. It’s as damning a
film about war as any made before or since.

As a
drama about justice, it’s as powerful a film as any courtroom drama you care to
mention. Dax, played brilliantly by Douglas, is the film’s moral centre, fully
aware of his responsibility to both his superiors and to his men. His strained
restraint spills out when it becomes clear that the court is uninterested in
justice, and his summary speech conveys all that needs to be said about the
creeping, casual, dehumanising cruelty of war.

Plus
there’s Kubrick himself, behind the camera but ever present. You watch the film
aware that it’s an early work, fascinated by what he’s doing, by what you’ll
see explored further in films he was yet to conceive. It’s all there, even back
then, his genius. Just watch the long tracking shots in the trenches – it’s
like a film school masterclass.

And
then there’s the end. As the one woman in the film serenades the soldiers with
a tearful German folk song as they swig beer, their bawdy rowdiness turns to
tears and the song becomes a lament, the men aware that tomorrow they’ll face
death again. As the poem from which the film takes its name says, ‘The paths of
glory lead but to the grave.’

PATHS OF GLORY / DIRECTOR: STANLEY KUBRICK / SCREENPLAY: STANLEY KUBRICK, CALDER WILLINGHAM, JIM THOMPSON / STARRING: KIRK DOUGLAS, RALPH MEEKER, ADOLPHE MENJOU, GEORGE MACREADY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

What goes around comes around. Once upon a time, when the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises got up to silly numbers, they and their teen-slashing ilk received a collective middle finger from jaded cinema audiences, desperate for something a bit more original. This they got, courtesy of the Scream series and the slew of post-modern slashers of the 1990s before the Hostel and Saw movies arrived to revive the spirit of the original video nasties, setting the tone for the many that followed. These days the genre seems to have finally overcome its personality crisis, The Evil in Us being a good case to point. Just honest-to-goodness slaughter here folks, albeit if a very familiar variety.

The plot sees six teenagers head off for a 4th of July celebration in a lonely cabin on a remote island. All is looking good for a weekend of laffs, bad dancing and fumbling bra removal when one of their number starts chopping out lines of cocaine. Turns out this isn’t just any old marching powder, but the product of a fiendish covert terror cell who have poisoned a batch of the drug with a special ingredient that – you guessed it – turns everyone who snorts it into ravenous, blood-crazed killers. Let drug-fuelled mayhem rain down upon these gak-fuelled fools! Oh yes, see that lonesome attractive girl who refused to partake? That’ll be our plucky heroine.

Writer-director Jason William Lee injects a knowingly fetid gust of old school classics like The Burning and I Spit on Your Grave to this well, er, executed, earnestly unpleasant little death-fest. The pretty young cast, the backwoods setting, the grizzled old boatman, the CB radio and wooden jetty may all be clichés but this is a tautly gripping tale that wisely steers clear of those lazy, knowing winks to the audience that are just as liable to derail the terror as amp it up.

Lee makes a virtue of his limited budget by largely avoiding the CGI trap and using some very effective make-up and in-camera effects. Performances are also very solid, all the ‘teens’ seeming to have watched the collective works of Wes Craven beforehand. The one weak link is the police investigator, who seems to have graduated from the Henry Cavill Academy of Acting (which we hear is running a two-places-for-one offer at the moment).

Like a large plate of Wagon Wheels washed down with three pints of Tango, The Evil in Us is an unquiet pleasure you’ll need to walk off the next day. Yes, we’ve seen it all before and the gears it crunches through to get to its blood-soaked finale may be a bit worn out, but hell, they still work. The Evil in Us is a trip up river that’s still worth a punt.

THE EVIL IN US / CERT 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JASON WILLIAM LEE / STARRING: DEBS HOWARD, DANNY ZAPOROZAN, BEHTASH FAZLALI, IAN COLLINS / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 10TH