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.

What else but the movies could make the bad guys the heroes? They’re mostly at home in comedies or films with comic elements, because while we know there are guys out there who can crack safes, launch computer viruses or deal drugs, they’d never act against the innocent …would they?

Stories weren’t about issues in those days, they were about setting up a scenario you’d never seen before (paying attention, Hollywood?) and keeping you mercilessly hooked by your need to know What Happens Next.