Eden Lake (2008)

It’s not long before the claret starts to flow. And it won’t be too long before you start eyeing the exit sign.

It doesn't fight shy of a truly frightening final twist, which makes it not only bleaker but also more truthful than virtually every other movie in this genre, which all too often is over-populated and under-humanised.

Frustratingly, there is potential in Watkins’ claustrophobic, back-to-nature setting, but, in trying to play ‘edgy’ with contemporary anxieties, his cooked-to-formula script merely sinks to the level of the gutter press exploiting those fears.

Dispiriting and unpleasant, a trip to Eden Lake will leave most viewers feeling the need for a hot shower and a tetanus jab.

For all the brutality of the confrontation with knife-weilding, car-nicking local scum - think Stanley knives gouging out tongues - it's never far off ludicrous.

This looks to me like the best British horror film in years: nasty, scary and tight as a drum.

It’s a claustrophobic marvel, and an impressive debut by Watkins.

So harsh, bleak and intense it achieves a level of raw power. A sordid little nightmare of contemporary England.

The film’s one major fault is that Reilly’s character repeatedly acts in ways that serve the plot, but which run contrary to rational human behaviour. By contrast, the shattering downbeat ending is well earned and genuinely shocking.

Instead of Deliverance's deep backwoods hicks we have now backwoods chavs who live a life unscrutinised by cops or anyone. Watkins has consumed all those tabloid hoodie tales and regurgitated a horror.