First time writer/director Bryan Bertino goes for nerve sawing tension rather than gore, and thoroughly achieves it through inventive camera angles and an unsettling score and sound effects. Unfortunately logic, natural behaviour and consistency are all sacrificed on the altar to achieve such a living, breathing sense of dread, and cliché often curbs an otherwise realistic depiction of events.

Sharp dialogue and strong dramatic chops lift it into very affecting territory. Great work from masters of the craft (Norton) and actors who’ve appeared in their fair share of duds (Voight and more recently Farrell) make it something special.

She’s very much the wrong girl to try to end a relationship with (even if your bed is repeatedly rammed against the wall from the vigour of your sex life), and when Matt tries to let the pathologically clingy and jealous Jenny down easily, things turn nasty.