The Woman in Black (James Watkins, 2012)

Daniel Radcliffe begins to move away from Harry Potter with some credibility here, even if it still leaps out at you when a boy runs up to him and calls him 'Daddy'. He plays a young lawyer in Edwardian London who has lost his wife and is in danger of losing his job, sent to a small country village to go through the paperwork in a vacant local manor. This turns out to be a sombre place of mist and shadows, and the locals do their utmost to dissuade him from going there, in the best tradition of the gothic horror story. He of course persists, and not before long is hearing and seeing things while the village children keep dying off.
No slasher film this, it's a welcome modern take on the Poesque chiller which for most of its duration leaves more to the imagination and has you constantly scanning the out-of-focus background which is carefully composed in shot after shot to suggest that something may just be there. The wide-eyed Radcliffe is also good casting for the genre, backed up by the dependable Ciarán Hinds as his one ally in the village. It's a pity, then, that it fails to follow its own plot logic at the end, but at least the ride there has been a satisfying one.

6/10

Rampart (Oren Moverman, 2011)

Whether playing earnest klutzes, male escorts or sociopaths, Woody Harrelson commands the screen with an easy air. He is therefore somewhat heavily relied on here. The story of a womanising and cocksure L.A. cop with a history of corruption who gets into hot water when filmed beating up a Hispanic who crashed into his car is serviceable, but the fact that it stays the right side of the reality line as his career, family life and conduct fall apart doesn't make for a film half as interesting as the OTT Ferrara Bad Lieutenant or even the Herzog remake, for all its worthiness.

5/10

Grabbers (Jon Wright, 2012)

Bloodsucking aliens get busy on a one-pub Irish island and the besieged locals discover that the only thing that puts the tentacled beasties off devouring them is to get sozzled. Much broad drunken hilarity and splattering ensues. This is a likable enough film which makes the most of its micro-budget and crams in many cheeky nods to all its survival horror ancestors, Tremors perhaps being the closest point of comparison. Accusing it of perpetuating alcoholic Irish stereotypes would be pointless: it's far too throwaway and good-natured for any such critiques.

5/10

Ill Manors (Ben Drew, 2012)

R&B rap star Plan B proves himself nothing if not versatile with a well-spliced directing debut, even if the milieu of the 'ill manors' of the title with its feuding East End drug dealers is hardly an imaginative stretch, blending his own background with the stock ingredients of disenfranchised London youth pics such as Adulthood, in which Drew had a supporting role. Still, it's wise to stick to what you know and the musician side does bring in an unusual contribution too, with the story being advanced along by hip-hop segments where the lyrics provide a direct narrative of the action, beyond just working as soundtrack. Don't go here looking for a life-affirming message, though: the most positive characters are the ones who are just victims of circumstance rather than predatory bastards, and the light at the end of the tunnel is mostly likely to be an oncoming train.

5/10