NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2025 #2: Reviews of Borley Rectory: The Awakening (UK 2025), Rumpelstiltskin (UK 2025), Manor of Darkness (UK 2025), Snake Creek (UK 2025), Boarhog (UK 2025) and Mundane (UK 2020)

Borley Rectory: The Awakening (UK 2025: Dir Steven M. Smith) This is Smith's third film based around events at Borley Rectory, reputedly 'the most haunted house in England'. His first, 2019's The Haunting of Borley Rectory, was set in 1944 and his second, The Ghosts of Borley Rectory filmed two years later, located the action in 1937.

For his third Borley opus Smith goes back further; initially to 1888 and then, for the majority of the movie, 12 years later. For this is a prequel to the oft told Rectory story of the nun's ghost, which so interested ghost hunter Harry Price when he investigated the haunting many years later.

The Rev Harry Bull (Julian Glover, yes that Julian Glover) lies dying in Borley Rectory. While he reassures his family that there are no ghosts at the Rectory he gifts his son Henry (Corneille Dion Williams) a box which will, he confides mysteriously, keep the family safe.

Twelve years later Henry is now rector, residing at Borley with his mother Constance (Patsy Kensit, yes that...ok I'll stop doing that now) and his four sisters. Constance is stricken with visions of a nun being attacked by a priest and takes to her bed, where she's attended by a nurse (former alt comedian Helen Lederer) and is visited by the ghost of her mother (Vicki 'Allo'Allo, Virgin Witch Michelle). Uncle Somerset (Smith regular Mark Wingett) arrives to provide support; a concerned Henry, fearing supernatural shenanigans and rapidly questioning his faith, summons the Reverend Shaw (Simon Philips) for a second opinion and a solution to the haunting.

BR: TA is co-produced by genre stalwart Louisa Warren, and it's possible that her presence has tempered some of Smith's rough round the edges approach to filmmaking; some care has been expended on this one, including an impressive location (Ingatestone Hall in Essex), a very The Woman in Black feel (all period costumes and candlelight) and some good performances. There are even some impressive jump scares although the spooks are perhaps a little more regularly visible that I'd have liked. I've not been a fan of most of Smith's previous movies, but BR: TA is classy and occasionally scary.

A version of this review was first published on the Bloody Flicks site.

Rumpelstiltskin (UK 2025: Dir Andy Edwards) Edwards is yet another UK contributor to the Twisted Child Universe (TCU) which has, in recent years, seen a plethora of to be honest rather average movies providing a horror twist on popular children's stories.

As one of those stories 'Rumpelstiltskin' is a shoo in for a horror film director; the original story by The Brothers Grimm is already pretty grotesque, and I can do no better than borrow the (AI generated) IMDb plot description to sum it up: "Miller lies about daughter's gold-spinning ability. Imp helps her impress King. She promises imp her future child for continued aid. When payment comes due, imp strikes deal with devil."

Edwards's movie is for the most part a reasonably faithful adaptation of the story with a number of more contemporary adornments. The tale's miller (Mark Cook) peddles his wayward daughter Evalina (Hannah Baxter-Eve) to the nasty king (Colin Malone), a chap prone to mounting the heads of his ex wives on poles. The miller's boast that his daughter can spin gold from straw ("I don't even know how to fucking spin", she concludes once isolated in the tower) comes to pass courtesy of an imp (Joss Carter) who pays her a visit and grants her wish in return for a kiss and, later, a gawk at her naked body.

Evalina's success at straw to gold wins her the hand of the king and, as queen, she gives birth; sadly she's promised her first born to Rumpelstiltskin as her side of the bargain, although had hoped to avoid pregnancy by consuming nettle tea. The imp's request for the infant can be voided if Evalina successfully guesses his name.

Edwards cloaks (pun intended) this low budget but modestly sumptuous yarn in various Game of Thrones stylings, with some dynastic squabbling and Rumpelstiltskin (whose makeup suggests an homage to the 1995 film of the same name) reporting directly to a figure named the Demon King of the Shadow Forest. Evalina is pleasantly feisty, and the script maintains a rather cheeky tone ("So she's a witch", concludes the king at one point, "I've married worse"). Rumpelstiltskin is, much like the director's previous TCU entry Cinderella's Revenge, a lot more fun that the drearier Mickey Mouse/Popeye end of the Universe, with some impressive photography and a wheezing, clunking dungeon synth score from the appropriately named 'Disgusting Cathedral' adding to the movie's quality.

Manor of Darkness (UK 2025: Dir Blake Ridder) There are two handy approaches for the 'fantastic' filmmaker looking to do something intriguing on a low budget. The first is the 'multiverse' concept, the second is the timeloop plot device; in Shanghai born Ridder's first released feature - also, staggeringly, the prolific director's 72nd film - he's gone for the second option.

Four disparate souls come together with crime on their minds. Brother and sister Chris (Louis James) and Laura (Kim Spearman) are at odds over the care of their mother; meanwhile Chris's girlfriend Lisa (Sarah Alexandra Marks), what with her tough upbringing and visions of herself covered in blood, has her own problems. Oh and there's Andy (Rui Shang), handy with a camera and trying to make some money for a custody battle, who the others have seen in pickpocket action.

Chris hatches a plan for some easy money. Inside a country manor used by a gang of thieves to stash their loot, most of the booty has been recovered following a raid; but not all. And in a freak coincidence the owner of the house has invited Chris and his chums to film inside, providing the perfect opportunity to liberate the remaining swag. But a visit to the basement unveils a large box which, when opened, triggers a sequence of events which lock the group in a perpetual live/die/live cycle.

Quite why all this happens is rather baffling, and there's a point about two thirds through the movie where the repetition starts to grate. What Ridder fails to do is unpick the onion skin layers of the story so that the audience understands what's happening; it's just a confusing mess, not helped by some rather lacklustre performances and misplaced attempts at humour. I can't fault Ridder for trying something that's a little different to most haunted house movies, but overall this is a misfire.

Snake Creek (UK 2025: Dir Charlie Steeds) Charlie's back! Mr Steeds, Bristol's answer to Roger Corman, strikes again, this time choosing something more reptilian than his usual cluster of monsters and werewolves.

Unlike other British directors, who may base their movies in the US but never venture further than a youth hostel in deepest Hampshire, Steeds is the real deal, authentically locating some of his American themed features in the US of A; in this case Georgia.

Snake Creek has four ex schoolmates travelling to a location deep in the Chattahoochee woods for a little R&R time. Headed by the exuberant Patrick (Paul Ogletree), the quartet stock up at a local general store, run by rum old Woody (Scot Scurlock) who issues the usual warnings about taking care in the forest. These would seem to be worth heeding based on the pinned posters highlighting a missing local girl, Willow (Faith McCoy), who we’ve already seen alive, covered in leaves and surrounded by rotting corpses, deep in the forest.

And the source of all this concern? Gwendoline, a 29ft snake, who slithers around the forest looking for human meat, and who just so happens to have discovered the four campers, protected by Woody and his inbred cohort.

Filmed back to back with Southern Nightmare, a slice of gothic that features pretty much the same cast, Steeds is on a one man mission to being the spirit of grindhouse to a new generation of moviegoers. The problem here is that while Snake Creek looks the part (Steeds as cinematographer has a keen eye for the outdoors) and sounds great via Simone Cilio’s strident score, this is basically four grown men being menaced by a snake puppet, albeit one designed by LA based SFX talent Eric Yoder. One does rather wonder why Charlie went all that way to make something so, well, silly?

But then when you consider that director Tom Gormican has just completed a big budget snake movie (Anaconda) there’s clearly some mileage in the slinky reptile as an object of fright, so why shouldn’t Steeds give us his own lower budget version? Snake Creek is big on characterisation and rural detail, but somewhat lighter on scares; it’s still worth a look though.

A version of this review was first published on the Bloody Flicks site.

Boarhog (UK 2025: Dir Craig Quinn) There's something weird going down on the streets of Manchester. Well a version of Manchester named Sounder City, and a fictional district: Villemomble (which is also a real suburb of Paris, but we're definitely not there).

A series of disappearances in the area have got the local population a bit twitchy. At the local hospital, the vaguely despotic Dr Adam Brecknell (Reece Ryan) hides his real self behind a cloak of supportive respectability, seducing the staff and being emotionally (and physically) abusive to his girlfriend Laura (Beverley Rendelle).

The country appears to be in some form of hostility with Russia (although conspiracy theorist tags of 'World War III' are dismissed by the Government). Neverthless a decision has been made to return serving troops back to the UK. One of these is Benji (Quinn) whose PTSD is, bluntly, through the roof; as well as being incredibly antisocial he's also plagued with visions of snout nosed witches.

When Brecknell is caught on site by hospital manager Claire (Nicola Mayers), meting out violence to hospital worker Laura, he's dismissed on the spot. Jobless and angry, he's kidnapped by an odd trio who make him an offer he can't refuse; and before we know it, 'Boarhog' is born.

After a while it gets increasingly difficult to follow events (there's a curse in there somewhere and those witches are back), partly because the sound quality of the film is pretty patchy, and there's a regional mumblecore effect going on dialogue wise too. But it doesn't matter; Boarhog is endlessly inventive, cheap as chips with some very impressive practical FX and a revenge tragedy kill count. Quinn is a witty chap in interview, and there's obviously some intelligence at work here (the script is surprisingly good for this sort of thing). If you can get past the DIY approach there's a lot to like, and honestly I'd rather watch something like this than an empty $10m snoozefest any day.

 

Mundane (UK 2025: Dir Ignacio Maiso) More suburban tension, this time set outside London. Mundane (Astrid Olofsson) is a young woman whose blog on everyday life starts attracting attention. Oh she's also a cyborg, but she tries to keep that fact to herself. Her adoptive mother (Nicola Wright) wishes that Mundane wouldn't call her Kathy, and the cyborg's boyfriend James (David Stock) has left her because he wants children and she can't have any (although she has faked two pregnancies, which ostensibly looks cruel on her part). Mundane's father/inventor Thomas (Paul Dewdney), previously estranged from the cyborg, comes back into her life.

Mundane's single friend appears to be Victoria (Daisy Porter) although this relationship appears to be tested when she admits that she has started going out with James; Mundane remains unphased.

A literary agent, Clare (Christina Ashford) is interested in marketing Mundane's blog, supported by Clare's wealthy manager Mark (Neil Ovenell), but is concerned when the cyborg outs herself online, having previously been happy to hide in plain sight. This disclosure triggers a succession of events that has consequences for all. 

'Consequences' is a pretty strong word to describe the impact of anything in Mundane, directed by Maiso at a snail's pace (I had previously reviewed his 2021 movie Them and didn't get on with that either). Mundane has that drained colour look and 'small head in big picture' framing adored by directors like Roy Andersson; it's beautifully photographed by Pierluigi Rossi, and Fernando Gimeno's score is straight out of a Wes Anderson movie. But despite its elegance and an appealing glacial performance by Olofsson in the title role, this is a rather empty film, initially intriguing but soon feeling like a short stretched to feature length.

The Severed Sun (UK New Wave of the British Fantastic Film 2025: Dir Dean Puckett)

Puckett's debut feature has been compared to Blood on Satan's Claw, The Handmaid's Tale, The VVitch and even Fanny Lye Deliver'd, which places it in some honorable company.

In a time period which suggests the past but, from some subtle design and narrative hints may in fact be the future, an isolated community eke out the most meagre of livings under the supervision of The Pastor (Toby Stephens). His daughter, the mercurial Magpie (Emma Appleton) is young and married to a human monster, in the shape of Howard (Eoin Slattery); but not for long. Magpie poisons Howard and chops off his hand (presumably the one that beat her).

The act unleashes a Beast (James Swanton) who, like the creature in Blood on Satan's Claw, remains in the background, potentially responsible for the heightening of tension and paranoia that grips the village. The Pastor's community is a prime example of the patriarchy in action; the men lay down the law while exercising the power in spite of it, while the women remain submissive and without agency.

But Magpie's actions rupture any stability within the village; she is shunned but unrepentant (her story is that Howard met his death through the misuse of an axe), hated both by the men and women because of her unwillingness to conform to the role of "dutiful wife", and thus suspected of being in league with the supernatural and widely accused of "heresy".

The paucity of budget available to Puckett has worked in the film's favour; the community in The Severed Sun is small in number, their resources even smaller; the religious panic therefore grips more intensely.  The Pastor tells his flock that they are living in a "fallen world", suggesting a medieval creed; but he also references nature which has "had her revenge", suggesting a past environmental collapse.

Explanations ultimately aren't necessary; the suggestion here is that the controlling dominance of The Pastor, and his negative and violent impact on his congregation, has a more universal application. The film is short (80 minutes), controlled and occasionally very nasty. It's not perfect (the lack of narrative explanation will doubtless annoy some) but the film is blessed with some superb natural cinematography by Ian Forbes and a creepy, immersive (and, apparently, improvised) soundtrack by a trio of musicians calling themselves 'Unknown Horrors'. Library of the Occult records, let me introduce you.

The Severed Sun is on UK and Ireland digital platforms from 6 October. The soundtrack by 'Unknown Horrors' is available to stream/download here.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2025 #1 Reviews of Bogieville (UK 2024), The Drowned (UK 2025), Bambi The Reckoning (UK 2025), The Haunting at Jack the Ripper's House (UK 2025), Get Away (UK 2024) and Leprechaun: The Beginning (UK 2025)

Bogieville (UK 2024: Dir Sean Cronin) Sean Cronin is no stranger to the vampire. As an actor he played the titular Count in last year’s Wrath of Dracula directed by Steve Lawson, and as well as helming this undead drama also finds time to cast himself as head vampire Madison. If nothing else Bogieville is a fascinating recreation of a 1980s US vamp movie, despite being filmed in the UK (on Cronin's own farm), and featuring a British cast.

Ham (Arifin Putra) and his girlfriend Jody (Eloise Lovell Anderson) skip town after Ham loses his job at the local garage and they can’t afford to pay their rent. Driving across country they come across a rather empty trailer park, named ‘Bogieville’, to recognise the owner’s obsession with the famous US actor.

Caretaker Crawford (Jonathan Hansler) looks after things, but after a bit of argy bargy offers Ham a job as a handyman, with the specific instructions that the pair should not leave the camp at night, or let anyone into the accommodation provided for them. But Bogieville is less deserted than originally made out; the site owner, Madison, is one of the undead, and with his acquired ‘family’ rises at night to feast on the living.

The vaguely sleazy setup recalls classic Rob Zombie movies, and the ‘all teeth and angst’ nature of the vampires is reminiscent of the undead characters in 2007’s 30 Days of Night; there’s also something of 1987’s Near Dark in the clandestine nature of the vampires’ existence. And it’s in these examples that is found the biggest problem with Bogieville; outside of the ‘homage to the US’ look of the film, credible for the most part (although some of the UK cast American accents are more successful than others), this film has very little to offer that is original. At 105 minutes it’s also overlong, particularly as the whole middle section drags before we get to the final reel vamp action. 

Cronin is to be congratulated for his attention to detail but he could have paid a little more attention to the story and rather lacklustre script.

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

The Drowned (UK 2025: Dir Samuel Clemens) Best known as the director of a number of Doctor Who podcast spinoffs, Clemens's debut feature was actually made in 2023, and toured festivals under its original title 'The Waterhouse'. 

It's one of those movies which slowly morphs from a fairly prosaic piece into mythological abstraction. Three crims, Eric (Alan Calton), his boyfriend Matt (Dominic Vulliamy) and Paul (Michelangelo Fortuzzi) have pulled off a valuable art theft, and have agreed to meet at an isolated coastal location prior to jetting off for a new life, complete with new identities. A fourth member of their team, Matt’s mother Denice (Corinne Wicks), fails to materialise; disturbingly Eric finds what looks like blood and matter at the water's edge, together with a single earring; maybe Denice's?

Understandably revved up and distraught at Denice's continued absence, their evening gets more problematic when, thinking they are alone, three women enter their world. Pixie (Lily Catalifo), Opal (Lara Lemon) and Noé (Sandrine Salyères) maintain that they have been shipwrecked, and before you can say 'Dionysius' (ok it's the women who mention the mythological figure) they have inserted themselves into the lives of the criminals. But as the shipwreckees begin playing mind games with the three men, there's a more sinister, and deadly, fate in store for the art thieves.

Clemens's movie remains tense throughout, from its opening scenes of a stern, focused Eric driving through country lanes with a gun at his feet, to the arrival of the three strange women and the dynamic of six people - three of whom are possibly supernatural - trapped in a small cottage. It's considerably helped by Edward White's often Philip Glass like score, which builds choral voices and an impending sense of doom, and a spare but effective script, which twists the narrative as the men realise that they're out of their depth. And while The Drowned does finally fall into abstraction (the original title makes sense in the movie's final reveal) it's a taut 90 minutes and well worth a look.

The Drowned will be available on Digital Download from 6th October in the UK, 7th October in the US & 8th October in ANZ

Bambi The Reckoning (UK 2025: Dir Dan Allen) The fourth entry in Jagged Edge’s ‘Twisted Child Universe’ (TCU) sees another dark reimagining of a beloved children’s classic text. In this instance JE house director Allen has plundered the 1923 novel ‘Bambi, A Life in the Woods’, written by Felix Salten and famously adapted, albeit in a modified form, for the big screen by Walt Disney in 1942.

TCU creator Rhys Frake-Waterfield, in response to criticisms that earlier Universe entries had been weak, promised to up his game; Bambi The Reckoning is the result. And compared with early JE productions, and indeed Allen’s previous output, BTR is definitely a step in the right direction.

Opening with an animated sequence which tells of the woods as being both a magical and dangerous place, we see a stag drinking from chemically contaminated water, the driver for Bambi’s murderous impulses. We meet mum Xana (Roxanne McKee), about to ferry her and young son Benji (Tom Mulheron) off to the relatives of absent dad Simon (Alex Cooke). The family are the usual feuding types, whose domestic squabbles move the movie along until mutated Bambi turns up, which to be fair doesn’t take long.

Most of the rest of the film pits the chemically altered deer against the local populace, with some baffling psychic bond existing between beast and Xana’s dementia ridden mother-in-law Mary (Nicola Wright). The setup may be familiar JE territory, and the Bambi references tangential at best, but if you don’t think about the silliness of the whole setup there’s a lot of fun (and gore) to be had, some better than average CGI and impressive nighttime photography by JE regular Vince Knight. The man behind this of course is the company’s head honcho Scott Chambers aka Jeffrey, who once again gets to lever in some Jurassic Park homages. The credits are littered with postproduction VFX crews and there’s a slickness at work here which all suggest a slightly higher budget than the usual fare.

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

The Haunting at Jack the Ripper's House (UK 2025: Dir Stephen Staley, Natasha Tosini) Separately Staley and Tosini have enjoyed diverse roles in many of Scott Jeffrey’s previous productions (including several entries in the Twisted Child Universe ‘franchise’), but this is their first joint directing gig.

Perhaps taking a leaf out of the Steven M. Smith playbook – ie an obsession with ‘live’ paranormal shows (a no longer au courant idea) - The Haunting at Jack the Ripper’s House focuses on a group of YouTubing ghost hunters. Their show, ‘The Haunt Hunters’, devised by friends Richard (Jack Hyde) and Jake (Jack Hoy), involves a group of influencers travelling to supposedly haunted locations and staging materialisations; the more hits they get, the wilder the hoaxes.

A creative bust up between the creators sends Richard packing, just about the same time as Jake secures the show’s biggest set up yet; Jack the Ripper’s house. OK this needs a bit of explaining; Aaron Kosminski was one of the key suspects in the initial Ripper murder investigations. Ripperolgists have tracked down Kosminski’s UK hideout, the delightfully named ‘Ripper Manor’ (in reality I think it’s a youth hostel, judging by the fire doors), currently owned by a creepy guy called Victor (Robert Hedley). Despite the proprietor’s objections, Jake’s people have managed to secure the property for a night of spook hunting. But they’re about to find out that this is one house that doesn’t need its ghostly activity to be faked.

Apart from the modern social media trappings, this is basically a rerun of the 1969 movie The Haunted House of Horror, where swinging teenagers are picked off one by one by a mysterious presence in a supposedly haunted house.

For most of the film, the ‘Ripper’ element looks tacked on as an audience pull (the title is total crowd bait) but happily things do get rather strange in the movie’s last third. But before we get there we have to go through buckets of indifferent acting, shots filmed in near darkness and, well, lots of wandering around. I was initially thinking that Staley and Tosini may have rushed to finish the film to get it Festival ready (there are some line fluffs and clumsy edits), but no, it was actually made last year. Frankly people it’s just not that good; all power to the director/producers for trying something a little different, but even so…

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

Get Away (UK 2024: Dir Steffen Haars) Richard (Nick Frost), ‘daddy’ to ‘mummy’ Susan (Aisling Bea) has decided to rent a cottage on the remote Swedish island of Svälta; also along for the holidays, somewhat begrudgingly, are their kids Jessie (Maisie Ayers) and Sam (Sebastian Croft).

They’re a funny bunch; Richard and Susan spend the time bickering – couples counselling is mentioned – and Svälta appears a rather inhospitable place, with locals to match, who when they’re not ignoring the family are imploring them to leave. 

The Airbnb is looked after by the creepy Mats (Eero Milonof, last seen in the very weird 2018 movie Border) whose unctuousness and unwillingness to allow the family personal space adds a gritty edge to an already deeply odd setup.

Of course the real reason (well not the real real reason but I can’t explain that because of, well, spoilers) that the family have travelled is to witness the islanders’ annual celebrations, Karantan, all masks, flaming torches and drumbeats; a very The Wicker Man set up. 

Nick Frost, who wrote Get Away, reportedly came up with the idea for the film after experiencing a cold reception from locals when visiting the home of his Swedish ex wife Cristina. All I can deduce from the incredibly bloody final reel of the movie was that his rejection must have run very deep. The whole thing is a bit of an uneven mix; there’s some fun working out why the family seem so weird together, and the islanders are an archly abrasive bunch. But Get Away is a one gag movie which relies on its big plot twist to deliver, and spends quite a lot of time getting to it. Frost and Bea have both been funnier; ultimately although I didn't totally dislike it, this was a bit of a misfire.

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

Leprechaun: The Beginning (UK 2024: Dir Rahul Gandhi) This is the third 'Leprechaun' outing for Champdog Films, Louisa Warren's production company and, sadly, by far the worst. It looks like freelancer Gandhi was hired for this film and heavily guided by producer Warren; whatever happened, even for Champdog, who have offered a fair few cinematic turkeys in recent years, this is a real low.

Dave and Mary (Mark Collier and Mary Eva Sharp) are journeying to the home of Mary's late father where they will be met by Mary's sister Judy (Amanda Jane York) and her bluff husband Colin (Ben Keenan). As a child Mary's dad would regale the family with tales of a gold hoarding Leprechaun who lived near the house; this piques the interest of one of Mary's children, Sky (Julia Quayle) who undertakes a search of the house when they arrive. Her other daughters, Faith (Grace Cundy) and Lisa (French actor Julie Ghallab, whose Gallicness is never explained; chalk it up to blind casting) are less excited.

Once there it's clear that Judy is hell bent on selling the house, which clashes with Mary's sentimentality. But whatever differences must be put aside once the Leprechaun makes itself known and starts despatching those members of the family nosy enough to delve into the house's secrets and go after the creature's gold.

The Leprechaun here is, as in Warren's other films, not height restricted; in fact in this one he seems to be modelling himself on Art the Clown (the actor's name is not disclosed in the credits and therefore is unlikely to be Leprechaun passim Bao Tieu). Alas the excesses of the Terrifier films are conspicuous by their absence here (Warren's films always remain resolutely PG, possibly aiming themselves at a YA audience) and any gore is more of the 'mild peril' type.

Performances range from the adequate to the, well, inadequate, and Alessandro Di Giuseppe's script is the usual Champdog mix of myth and soap opera (Warren's liking for found scrapbooks sees a number of hastily assembled documents paraded here as ancient tomes c/o Rymans). Warren has been better than this; Leprechaun The Beginning is, sadly, a crock.

Piglet (NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM UK 2025: Dir Andrea M. Catinella)

On first glance you'd be mistaken for thinking that Piglet was yet another entry in those 'Poohniverse' - or 'Twisted Childhood' movies (you know the ones that take fictional kiddie characters in the public domain and stick them into run of the mill horror films), particularly as the director, Mr Catinella, has some form here.

Well I suppose it is in that, like other movies in that most ridiculous of sub genres, this is little more than someone in a mask chasing frightened 'teens' around a field or youth hostel (delete as necessary).

But Piglet has a little more going for it than many movies of its ilk, with a genuinely grindhouse feel, even if location wise it occupies a bit of a liminal space between the UK countryside and the backwoods of the US of A.

Five girls have motored out to a remote cabin to celebrate the 21st birthday of their friend Katie (Alina Desmond), who's had a bit of a rum time courtesy of her abusive ex. Still traumatised by the whole thing, Katie's tolerance for booze and her general demeanour place her firmly in the party pooper category. But no matter - the rest of the gals are determined to make the weekend swing, despite the presence of creepy cabin owner Mr Hogarth (a rather ripe turn from Jeremy Vinogradov) who spends a little too much time looking the ladies up and down and, later, ogling lesbian partners Diane (Alina Varakuta) and Alex (Lauren Staerck) when they try out the rather unappetising looking outdoor jacuzzi.

But there's trouble afoot; a security detail transporting a hooded prisoner - by van - end up dead when their charge escapes his bonds and mashes up his guards. Apparently this reprobate had been experimented on while in prison and turned into a kind of human/pig hybrid with superhuman strength. Once away from the van the demented convict swaps the bag on his head (we don't see his face) for a handy pig mask - which is sort of overegging the 'Piglet' idea - and lo, a killer is born. The porcine psychopath immediately gets to work, despatching a car full of people en route to joining the birthday get together; first to go are Bruce (Jack Monahan) and his girlfriend Riley (Eva Ray, who seems to have come to the set directly from a Babestation shift). The other passenger, artistic and autistic Courtney (Tais Sholvie) is dragged away and imprisoned for Piglet's later amusement. Happy with his work, Piglet closes in on the camp and the bickering party girls; and it turns out that he's about to get some assistance as well.

Ok so mood and photography are major plus points here; it really does look good and conjures up a backwoods feel. Everything else is, unfortunately, on the other side of the scorecard. Even for low budget fright flicks, the amount of non acting going on here is egregious. Lines are fluffed, stresses are constantly in the wrong place and at times it's impossible to hear what's being said (not that it really matters, even when Catinella jazzes things up by having one of the girls tell a folk horror story that may be about Piglet but also referencing Katie's violent ex Spencer). Some of the cast seem to think they're American (references to 'cellphone coverage' and 'a town five miles north') which just makes things more confusing. It may have been better to have kept dialogue to an absolute minimum as, when the action gets going, it's all quite effective and nasty.

And yet I didn't dislike Piglet - the Texas Chain Saw Massacre messed up family elements work quite well and the gore is rather grungy - but elsewhere there's just too much that gets in the way of enjoyment. Shame.

Piglet is available on Digital Download from 2nd June.