Normally this is the kind of butchery that would have most sane film lovers up in arms, but the results are actually astonishingly good. The reason for this lies in both the quality of the original material and the care and attention that Houston lavished on the project. Whilst cut to make the film as exciting as possible, it retains the series’ emotional core, that of the fully-rounded but understated relationship between the ronin Itto and his three-year old son Daigoro. Similarly, the dubbing is some of the most effective I’ve ever seen on a foreign language movie; Houston apparently enlisted the help of lip-readers to assist him with the script, meaning that occasionally the English dialogue genuinely seems to be spoken by the Japanese actors. And the new music score is a blinder – perhaps anachronistic or inappropriate for the setting, but the humming synths and ambient washes interact well with the hyper-stylised visuals.

It is, however, Kenji Misumi’s original direction that is the star here. The episodic, Western-esque narrative simply demands that Itto fights off different sets of ninjas sent by the eponymous Shogun (who ordered the murder of Itto and his wife) in a variety of locations. This results in some of the most eye-poppingly enjoyable swordplay and bloodshed I’ve ever seen in a film; Misumi continually surprises with new ways of severing limbs, heads and other body parts, and the make-up department really go to town with some of the reddest blood I’ve seen outside of an Italian movie. The backdrops are stupendous as well, with each confrontation taking place in a setting more dazzling than the last; the epic climax sees Itto take on an entire army atop a desert dune, no less. There’s a tremendous sense of fun here, as well; Daigoro’s customised babycart, which allows him to see of a few ninjas himself, is a terrific touch, and the clan of female assassins are great villains.

Anchoring the film are two knockout performances from Tomisaburo Wakayama as Itto and Akihiro Tomikawa as Daigoro. Wakayama economically but subtly conveys both sadness and rage at the fugitive lifestyle he is forced to lead and the deep love for his son, whilst Tomikawa delivers one of the best performances I’ve seen from a child actor in a long time; if you’re left untouched by the scene where Daigoro gathers water from a river to revive an unconscious Itto, you’re a colder person than me. Whilst Houston’s primary interest is in the action, he retains enough character moments like this to allow a depth and warmth to permeate the gore, adding a couple of much needed respites to the frenzied action elsewhere.

Shogun Assassin would go on to cast a long shadow over many subsequent martial arts movies; in particular, it found renewed currency when Quentin Tarantino declared it the primary inspiration behind Kill Bill. Whilst the original Lone Wolf & Cub films probably more fully realised as pieces of film-making, this doesn’t stop Shogun Assassin being both a terrific genre piece and a hugely enjoyable piece of cinema in its own right. By turns touching, tense, beautiful and enormously exciting, it stands alone as possibly one of the unlikeliest artistic triumphs of the grindhouse era.

You can’t help but be left wondering if this is what he was attempting to do with Opera. The question has little to do with the setting (nor indeed title) but arise more because of Argento’s use of raw emotion as the central plot driver, often at the expense of coherent storytelling. Such an elevation might have been disastrous in a lesser director, but as ever with Argento you’re willing to moderate your critical faculties somewhat as you get drawn into his confused, uneasy but always beautifully rendered world.

The tale of a young operetta mysteriously targeted by a deranged killer might seem perfectly conceived to provide Argento with a fodder conveyor belt, but the opera backdrop actually serves as a nice distraction and allows him to indulge in some uncharacteristically self-indulgent fun. You can’t help but see something of Argento in Marco, the horror film director turned rather harried opera director, and you wonder whether the constant criticism of the latter (due, we learn, to his liberal re-interpretation of Verdi’s Macbeth) accounts for the former’s reluctance to give opera a go. Ian Charleson’s snarling performance suggests that it might well be. We (sadly) never get to enjoy Marco’s crow-laden Macbeth for anything longer than a few brief snippets, but it does provide Argento with just the right backdrop to set in place the best revelation of a murderer since Quincy, M.E. On a more serious level, the opera background initially gives Argento a relatively staid and comforting bolt-hole to retreat too in between the flashes of anarchistic slaughter. On every sensual level, the opulently rendered theatre provides welcome relief from the usual Dario butchery in the way that his music school did in Suspiria.

While seeing opera in film always adds a nice layer of bombast to proceedings, Argento deftly allows the edifice of what is happening on stage to sink into the background and allows the underlying terror and tragedy to bubble the surface. That is the undoubted strength of Opera, transforming what might otherwise have been a rather lumpy, incoherent and self-indulgent project into a film of stunning vision and genuine merit. Undoubtedly, there are some splutters, stops and starts along the way. It perhaps takes a little longer than it should for Betty’s predicament to be elevated from the bog standard hunter’s prey to tragic heroine (something the distractingly beautiful Christina Marsillach handles with real aplomb, despite Argento’s purported difficulties with her). Those are minor quibbles though, and they quickly fade into obscurity when we’re forced to step back and behold the patchwork of deliciously macabre situations visited upon Betty in their tragic totality. At that point you realise that opera’s loss is horror’s gain.

The exploding head in question occurs around 15 minutes into the film, and its fame (or infamy) does little to rob it of its impact. It’s a superbly realised moment, both technically (it’s far more accomplished than the similar rupture at the start of Dawn of the Dead) and directorially, hitting a huge crescendo after a seriously creepy buildup in which Michael Ironside’s rogue telepath (or “scanner”) Revok engages in a battle of wills with a hapless fellow telepath giving a demonstration of his abilities. It’s the high point of a sensational opening half hour that both thrills – Revok, head of an underground group of scanners who are plotting a world takeover, subsequently unleashes some serious carnage on the cops who try to arrest him – and tantalises us with a central plot arc that promises much excitement to follow.

Unfortunately, that excitement never really comes. The main plot, in which tortured scanner Cameron Vale is enlisted by security firm ConSec to infiltrate and bring down Revok’s organisation, sadly fails to fulfill its undeniable potential. Apparently production on the film started while the script was still unfinished, and this would serve to explain some of its problems; after a blistering start, the pace slows down almost unbearably, and the action degenerates into a series of somewhat disconnected, vaguely unsatisfactory setpieces, which increasingly rely on the scanners showing hitherto unmentioned abilities in order to further the plot. One example is the sequence in which Vale successfully blows up a computer using his mind via the telephone, which allows the use of some fairly impressive pyrotechnics, but does little to shake the suspicion that everyone was making it up as they went along.

The other problem is that the film criminally underuses Michael Ironside, whose sneering, understated performance is one of the highlights. Revok is undoubtedly the most interesting character, and it’s perhaps understandable that Cronenberg wished to preserve his intrigue by keeping him to the shadows, but considering how strongly his presence is felt at the start of the film and how the climax depends on him, his presence is sorely missed in the middle and would have livened things up no end. It’s always a pleasure to see Patrick McGoohan, here in the role of Dr Paul Routh, but he’s unfortunately hampered by an accent that is presumably American but often wanders into several other nationalities. Stephen Lack’s performance as Vale is a genuinely mixed bag; initially his wide-eyed rabbit in the headlights persona is well suited to the scenes in which he discovers the power of his own mind for the first time, but when required to be commanding and heroic he quickly looks out of his depth.

The climactic showdown between Revok and Vale is pretty decent and definitely raises the excitement levels somewhat but it still falls some way short of the balls-out mind war you might have been expecting at the beginning. Which brings us back to that exploding head. In that one scene, the film simultaneously excels itself and peaks too soon; it’s a textbook lesson in how one iconic moment can raise the levels of expectation to a point where disappointment can only follow. Scanners’ reputation in the public mind rests on a single shot; it’s probably best enjoyed as “The One Where The Guy’s Head Explodes” and nothing more.

As is probably clear from the plot summary, Tenebrae finds Argento in a self-reflexive mood. Apparently, he was inspired to make the film by a disturbing series of telephone death threats he received from a deranged fan, and it’s not hard to see fairly obvious parallels between Peter Neal, the crime novelist celebrated for the lurid brutality of his prose, and Argento himself, who if nothing else really pushed the envelope in terms of the elegant, poetic presentation of gut-wrenching brutality. There are some fun scenes which play on the director’s reputation including a sequences in which Neal is quizzed on whether or not his novels are sexist by a feminist journalist (who, it transpires, is a lesbian – which is endemic of Argento’s somewhat passé approach to gender politics; in any case, she’s one of the first to get butchered), and the policeman Inspector Giermani is in many ways the archetypal dumb fan – enraptured by Neal’s work but incapable of really understanding it.

That said, Tenebrae isn’t really a commentary or defence by Argento of his work, but the parallels between the director and his character do add a certain mischievous frisson to the proceedings. It also serves to make the grisly twist at the end of the film even more ghoulish if you think too long about its implications. On a first viewing, I’ll admit to finding the movie’s resolution somewhat gimmicky compared to, say, Deep Red, but on re-watching it does work on a meta-level and adds to the blood-soaked aura of fun that pervades the film. Like Deep Red, Argento has all the pieces in place so that the final unveiling of the killer makes narrative sense; the red herrings he throws you throughout are all accounted for and the final set-piece is a hugely satisfying bloodbath.

One area in which Tenebrae continues to receive criticism is in the look of the film. True, compared to the likes of Suspiria the modernist architectural structures in which the film takes place feel overly stark and washed out, but in some ways this more muted backdrop boils down Argento’s trademark presentation of murder to its very essence, focussing his camera on just the victim and the murderer. There are some incredibly arresting scenes in this film – most notably the celebrated panning shot over the top of a building tracking the killer’s pursuit of the people inside, but also incidental shots such as the close-up of the gloved hand of the killer smashing a lightbulb with a razor blade. Combined with Goblin’s thumping incidental score – probably the most overtly synthpop they’d contributed to an Argento film at this point, and which at times even starts to foreshadow Faithless – Tenebrae sometimes takes on the feel of a music video, but whilst it’s somewhat removed from the sonic and visual palette of his previous works it’s still every bit as stylised as his great works and, in its own way, just as beautiful.

The acting’s pretty passable for a dubbed Italian movie as well; Anthony Franciosa is clearly having a whale of a time in the lead role, and he makes a nice double act with Daria Nicolodi, aka Mrs Dario Argento and frequent collaborator. Ultimately, Tenebrae is probably not as significant a movie milestone as Deep Red or Suspiria, but as a rip-roaring murder mystery it’s probably one of his slickest, most taut and most enjoyable films. The prevailing impression is that of a director at the top of his game having a ball with his material, and sense of fun that runs through this gory shocker is utterly infectious. Highly recommended.

A first time viewer might be surprised, given the film’s reputation, that the titular exorcism only really takes place in the last 20 minutes. But the demonic possession of the 12 year-old Regan McNeil is not so much the film’s raison-d’etre as it is the catalyst for three different plot strands which span the supernatural and the personal: actress Chris McNeil’s relationship with her daughter following her breakup with the child’s father; Father Merrin’s apparent awakening of a demon on an archaeological dig in Iraq; and Father Karras’ crisis of faith, compounded by the death of his mother. When Regan is possessed – and it’s only halfway through the film that we become aware that she is – the film is not just a display of overt, graphic horror; the possession has consequences for these very real people. The infamous displays of violence and abusive language are secondary to the fact that – for the audience – the fate of the child matters.

All this is helped by the absolutely pitch-perfect performances of the lead actors. Ellen Burstyn runs the full gamut between tenderness and hysteria in the role of Chris, and she is never less than convincing. Likewise, Jason Miller’s is immensely likeable and sympathetic as the conflicted Father Karras, and forms a good contrast with Max von Sydow’s legendary turn as Father Merrin. Von Sydow captures – perhaps more so than any other film I can think of – the essence of a man whose faith is so strong that it in turn strengthens him into a powerhouse whose presence and gravitas hulk over the latter part of the film.

At the heart of the film, though, is Linda Blair as Regan. Since the film, Blair has been tainted somewhat by dubious career moves and personal controversy, and it’s widely felt that she was robbed of an Oscar for her role here by Friedkin’s initial unwillingness to disclose that the voice of the demon was provided by Mercedes McCambridge rather than Blair herself. She is, though, astonishing in the part, showing a precocious range that is way beyond her years. Her chemistry with Burstyn in the film’s early scenes is immensely touching, meaning that her coldness in the earlier throes of her possession are actually more disturbing than the creature that she becomes. To see the ‘ideal daughter’ of the film’s opening masturbating with a crucifix and using obscene language is nothing less than horrifying.

Ultimately, The Exorcist succumbed to the fate of all great genre movies – franchising, foreign rip-offs, second-rate homages and special editions. At the centre of it, though, is this relatively simple, heartfelt and utterly devastating film, which over thirty years on has lost none of its ability to draw you into its world and shock you. Peerless, and highly recommended.

I don’t normally mention DVD extras in these reviews, but Contamination comes packaged a pretty engaging 20 minute interview in which Cozzi, clearly on the defensive, explains how pretty much every aspect of the film is a product of compromise, commercial considerations and interference from the producer. It was the producer who wanted “an ugly woman” to play Colonel Stella Holmes, hence the casting of Louise Marleau, which seems slightly uncharitable. The production company was based in the office next to the company who made Zombie Flesh Eaters, and hearing how much money that film made, they decided to get the same cast – to find that only English thesp Ian McCulloch was available. Budgetary constraints meant that huge chunks of the film were made in a studio in Rome, which explains why it boasts some laboratory sets that even the 60s Batman series would wince at.

Cozzi – or Lewis Coates as he is credited – is keen to give the impression that as an artist, his main motivation was to pay tribute to the science fiction films he loved, particularly Alien. In practice, he achieves this by liberally helping himself to much of Scott’s iconography. The chest bursting scene is present and correct – replayed a dozen times, in fact – as are the green eggs, which vary between being close-ups of olives and something resembling a rubber bath toy. The massive alien Cyclops, meanwhile, harks back to the B-movies of the fifties in both design and direction, whilst the opening ten minutes are pretty much identical to the opening ten minutes of Zombie Flesh Eaters.

So far, so derivative, but is Contamination entertaining? It is to start with. The first forty minutes are pretty good fun as long as you’re prepared to look past the appalling scripting, wooden acting and flaccid direction. I’m not normally of the ‘so bad it’s good’ school – you either like it or you don’t – but it’s hard not to admire the gall of writing lines like “call it intuition – but I think they were going to put those eggs in the sewers!!” as late as 1980. The early scenes try to feel so epic – complete with budget-busting helicopter shots of New York, to desperately try and sell the idea that the whole film was made there – that it’s hard not to get swept along, and your patience is rewarded by an exploding man less than 12 minutes in. The music (by Italian horror stalwarts Goblin) is great too, all farting synths and funky bass guitars.

Unfortunately it all falls apart at the halfway point, where Contamination turns into a terrible James Bond ripoff, complete with sabotage sub-plots and a secret base on a coffee plantation. Cozzi claims that this turnabout was forced upon him, but it’s pretty clear that he must shoulder the blame for some extraordinarily leaden pacing. The film almost grinds to a halt, and although McCulloch – brilliant as ever – does his utmost to lend some much-needed grit to proceedings, Louise Marleau and Marino Mase sleepwalk through their parts, including possibly the least convincing romantic subplot ever seen on screen.

All of which means that when the alien Cyclops does arrive, it’s a blessed relief – partly because it means the end is in sight, partly because it reduces the amount of inert acting we have to sit through. In keeping with everything else in Contamination, the Cyclops is a bit rubbish; apparently designed as a hugely expensive mechanical prop, it failed to operate on the day, meaning Cozzi had to film it in 100 different shots to cover the fact that it was being operated by hand. Suffice it to say that Mase’s death more resembles a terrible accident with a vacuum cleaner than it does consumption by an evil alien.

In light of these real failings, it seems churlish to criticise the script’s brave lack of logic – Marleau’s character in particular seems to alternate between making jaw-dropping leaps of logic to missing clues that are bleeding obvious – because if these were the film’s only problems it would still be a fun, ropey piece of trash cinema. Unfortunately, Contamination’s main crime is that it simply becomes rather boring, which is ultimately Cozzi’s fault. Apparently he now runs a film memorabilia store, which seems a far more apt way of paying tribute to his beloved sci-fi movies than this brave but ultimately unsatisfying effort.

The Evil Dead has quite rightly become the most celebrated film of those that became entangled in the video nasty farrago, partly because it’s one of the best, and partly because it had the most obvious and visible effects on other ‘mainstream’ genre films at the time. Copious splatter wasn’t new in horror movies, but Raimi’s injection of comedy was, and led to a whole array of ‘splat-stick’ (yuck) films in its wake, most notably the Return of the Living Dead saga. Instead of relying on comedy characters or amusing situations, Evil Dead is actually fairly serious-minded in its story and overall tone, but there is much humour in both the ludicrous exaggerations of horror conventions and the lunatic energy that Raimi’s direction imbues the proceedings. At this stage, Bruce Campbell plays Ash, the central character in all three films, dead straight and there are genuine shocks and chills to be found, most notably in the transformation of the other students into giggling demons.

Perhaps most remarkable is how inventively Raimi deploys his pitifully small budget. Evil Dead is small scale, but never looks cheap; the POV shots of the mysterious force in the woods – apparently achieved simply by taping a camera to a plank and running around with it – are startling, and have an overwhelming effect when combined with the effective sound effects and furious editing. Throughout all three films, Raimi’s bludgeoning of the viewer with exhausting visuals remains the most rewarding and fruitful trick in his arsenal, and it’s this aspect of the first film that is really developed in the sequel.

Dead By Dawn is less Evil Dead 2 than Evil Dead Squared. Raimi overlooks such trivialities as, say, plot and character – both sketchy at best in the first film – in favour of all-out visual excess and a frantic, almost Looney Tunes-esque aura of cartoony slapstick. It’s a testament to his level of invention that Raimi’s indulgences rarely seem puerile or predictable, and on a first viewing the film’s unpredictability is utterly compelling – in that the viewer never quite knows what’s coming next, whether it’s a hysterical laughing deer, the hilarious farting noise made by the decapitated witch or Ash’s logic-defying decision to graft a chainsaw to his arm in place of his severed hand. Raimi has commented that his intention with the film was to see what he could get away with putting Bruce Campbell through, and Campbell steps up to the challenge; across the film, his portrayal of Ash shifts from the more earnest portrayal in The Evil Dead to a tounge-in-cheek, gun-totin’, chainsawin’ action hero – complete with slick catchphrases like “groovy” and “let’s carve ourselves a witch”.

The third film, Army of Darkness, falls between two stools. On the one hand, it continues the same self-parodic portrayal of Ash from Evil Dead 2, but this time Raimi tempers the excess, seemingly preferring to make a slick, medieval romp that sits rather awkwardly with Bruce Campbell’s ultra-stylised performance. The film is a very clear homage to the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion epics of the 50s and 60s, and the creature segments are by far the most successful, particularly the brilliant skeleton army. However, about two-thirds of the way through, Raimi pulls out one of the memorable running-pan shots that he used so heavily in the first two films, and at that moment we realise what we’re missing; Army of Darkness may be the most technically accomplished of the three Evil Dead films, but it has the least energy and even drags in places. It’s too silly to take seriously, but lacks the necessary invention needed for the audience to just roll with it.

As I discovered in my Evil Dead marathon, it’s a pretty lousy trilogy that doesn’t really reward back-to-back viewing. But leave enough space between instalments, and it’s pretty clear why at the first two films are genre classics. Raimi’s career arc from video nasty director to one of Hollywood’s hottest talents is only marginally less ridiculous than that of Peter Jackson, and while fans continue to clamour for an Evil Dead 4, Army of Darkness would suggest that maybe it’s a good thing that the franchise remains dormant. The appeal of the films lies in the hyperactive energy that only young, independent film-makers seem to be able to muster; somehow, a big-budget, major studio-back return to the log cabin wouldn’t feel right.

In much the same way that The Blair Witch Project capitalised on its unexpected success by immediately rushing out a sequel, fans of the diabolical ‘Jigsaw’ had to wait for less than a year for the follow-up to Saw. In light of this it shouldn’t be too surprising that Saw II offers up very little in the way of fresh ideas, but should we really have expected anything else? After all, the strength of the original was in watching helpless victims being psychologically and physically dissected in fiendishly cruel ways. Is this enough to carry a sequel though?

I think it is, just about. Saw II is a little more polished than the first, with the same frantic death scenes but this time layered between more a deliberate approach to telling the story. It helps that we actually get to meet Jigsaw this time (Tobin Bell stealing the show), and though the joust between him and Eric Matthews eventually becomes a little tiresome it does add an interesting dimension to the scenario and is the only really interesting point of reference. The attempts to inject Jigsaw’s motivation with a sense of morality are a little heavy-handed at times, but his rationale of human beings living in a cruel world where violence can (and should) be used for redemption as well as to inflict suffering is something to think about whilst people are having bits hacked out of them. As with the original, we have to wait until the dying seconds to find out the full import of his quasi-philosophy but it does flourish into a cruelly ironic finale which makes up for the boredom that occasionally creeps in during the rest of the film.

This time the scares are played out on a bigger stage, with several human lab-rats provided for our titillation in a sufficiently moody house whose resemblance to the Resident Evil games is, I suspect, more contrived than coincidental. Because of the duel-layered plot the goings on in the house often seem to slip away from the attention of the audience for a bit too long, which means that when the nasty bits do kick off it sometimes feels gratuitous. Unlike the original it is difficult to feel any sympathy with any of Jigsaw’s victims which again makes the elaborate trials that are inflicted on them feel a little hollow. The refreshing originality of Saw meant that subsequent films would always be hard pressed to stretch out what is a pretty finite premise. Saw II just about manages to tread water and will undoubtedly keep fans of the original happy for an hour or so.

It’s probably worth pointing out at the outset that this film contains gore, and lots of it – and for many, this is where its appeal (or at least its notoriety) will lie. Whilst some of the bloodier scenes tend to slip into Giallo / exploitation cliche (there are several tight close-ups of expanses of flesh being pierced and punctured – so far, so Argento), there is also some nauseatingly effective imagery here, particularly in the dreamlike opening sequence, in which George finds the piled-up remains of a butchered body in the bottom of his bed. Thankfully, Scavolini chooses to give us more than simply a catalogue of atrocities; although the plot becomes suspiciously similar to that of Halloween (particularly when George begins to stalk his wife and children wearing a spooky mask), the direction is sufficiently stylised and distinctive so as to prevent it looking like a straight rip-off. Particularly effective is Scavolini’s non-linear approach to narrative; the main story is very clearly delineated (with caption cards marking “The First Night”, “The Second Night”, and so on), but at the same time we are drip-fed elements of backstory via flashback which helps us piece together what is going on. The flashbacks play out – in excruciating detail – the childhood event which left George so scarred; even though it’s pretty clear what actually happened long before Scavolini spells it out for us, there’s a satisfying sense of narrative closure, given added punch by the implication that George’s son CJ, having escaped his murderous father, may end up inheriting this legacy of violence.

It’s an interesting setup, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite gel mainly due to the film’s erratic pacing. It sags terribly in the middle, and the plot strand concerning George’s experimental therapy is left frustratingly undeveloped. In places the film feels unnecessarily padded; CJ’s compulsive lying feels like it was only included in order to extend the plot, and it’s an aspect of his character that’s left without any narrative payoff. The opening is quite unsettlingly bewildering, but the stalk ‘n’ slash scenes of the film’s second half have a familiarity to them mainly due to their similarity with the aforementioned Halloween. The mainly domestic setting means that the production values feel a lot less threadbare than many of the other nasties, and most of the dialogue is passable, but the acting never rises above adequate; what the film needs is a knockout performance, but most of the participants are largely unmemorable. That said, special mention must be made of the child who plays the young George in the flashback scenes, who brings a quiet solemnity to his role that is actually quite suspenseful.

Nightmares in a Damaged Brain is no masterpiece, but it’s not a disaster either. Lurking beneath the technical limitations of low-budget cinema and the unoriginal premise, there’s an interesting approach at work that makes the film watchable at the very least. Nightmares is, surprisingly, a film I’d quite like to see remade – as it stands, it promises much but ultimately doesn’t quite deliver.

Part of the film’s success lies in the way the the victims of the deranged Mick are not simply generic knife-fodder. The film’s first half is very leisurely paced – indeed, it could hardly move any slower – but this allows McLean to develop Ben, Lizzie and Christy into fully-rounded characters that, crucially, we really do care for. The film’s early scenes are dominated by Ben and Lizzie’s burgeoning romance, and this is handled touchingly but unsentimentally. Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi give credible, naturalistic performances, which means that by the time the blood starts flowing we genuinely care for the characters in a manner that doesn’t feel forced or overly dictated by the director. When a dead car battery leaves the trio stranded in the middle of nowhere, the sense of foreboding is increased by our natural sympathy for them.

It’s a film of two halves, however; while the first half is slow but touching, the second half left me reeling with some of the most astonishingly brutal scenes I’ve ever seen. John Jarratt’s Mick has all the makings of an iconic screen psychopath; right from his first appearance he has a great physical presence and a rough around the edges charm that’s cast in a terrifying new light once we know the depths of his sadism. The pace quickens as the trio attempt to escape from his clutches; indeed, some of the later scenes are quite nerve shredding, as McLean combines unflinching visceral nastiness with a tense sense of anticipation that there’s something even more horrible just around the corner – and the prospect of very little relief or rescue from the terror merely aids this. Mick’s pursuit of Kristy, in particular, is utterly relentless, and if his treatment of her doesn’t have you wincing, then his antics with Lizzie will – and the phrase “head on a stick” will probably be burned into your memory for some time to come.

Wolf Creek wears its influences very unsubtly on its sleeve, but it’s undoubtedly one of the best horror films of the last few years and a welcome return for the ‘survival’ genre. It’s well made, well acted and has some unforgettably horrible imagery. Along with The Descent and the Saw films, Wolf Creek offers an encouraging indication that the horror genre is moving back towards genuine, well-crafted scares rather than simply 15-rated spooky action. It’s not for everyone, but it’s full-blooded and uncompromisingly grim. Whether it will stand up remains to be seen, but those who feel horror has dumbed-down of late could do far worse than to check this out.