Knight Moves - 1992 USA d: Carl Schenkel

An under-rated thriller from a talented director whose career never lived up to promise of his 1984 film Abwärts and who died, sadly young, in 2003.  The film looks and plays like a Hollywood tribute to Italian gialli thrillers and liberally lifts from them - especially the works of Dario Argento who is "quoted" from freely throughout. However, rather than a rag-tag homage/rip-off, the film works as a slightly tongue in cheek Americanisation. I suspect having Europeans at the helm helped a lot here.

Christophe Lambert is probably not anybody's idea of a great actor, and though he seems out of his depth here alongside Diane Lane and Ferdy Mayne and so on, his performance is quite appropriate. There's a twinkle of menace to his eyes and he brings a looming shadow of darkness to his part as hero, which is entirely in keeping with the script. The rest of the cast are fine, but it is Lambert who - surprisingly - carries it.

Set against the unlikely (and amusing) backdrop of professional chess, this is a fine old whodunnit and howwillhedoitnext tale with murders a-plenty, red herrings, flummoxed police, beautiful camerawork and women/a child in peril. A full-on Giallo in all but nationality! If that genre interests you, then there will be plenty to enjoy here.  Well worth seeking out, if murder mystery thrillers are your bag.

Offspring - 2009 USA d: Andrew van Den Houten

In a world where lovelorn teenagers swoon over camp vampires in an effort to promote abstinence, Jack Ketchum is one of the most powerful providers of gut churning, rich, emotionally devastating horror literature.  His breakthrough novel "Off Season" updated the Sawney Beane myth and placed it on an isolated American coast in the present day. This tale of a savage cannibal clan spawned a sequel, "Offspring", and the film considered here is an adaptation of that sequel, the screenplay by Ketchum himself.

The director, Andrew van den Houten, had previously produced the excellent and harrowing film version of Ketchum's masterpiece The Girl Next Door, and like that film, Offspring is extremely successful in transferring the mood and tone of Ketchum's writing to the screen. It's a simple story really - cannibals terrorise citizens revealing the frailties of modern society as it happens. It's The Hills Have Eyes territory. But this is not in a far off desert, this is in your very back garden and your own living room. There is some police procedural stuff as the cannibal's cave is sought and it is handled well, not disrupting the action or flow.

The cast are good - especially Art Hindle and Polyanna McIntosh as retired cop and leader of the clan respectively. The film is shot in a bleak and dark style which compounds the air of hopelessness throughout. The scenes of horror are full-blooded and potent - plenty of gore and violence.  The lead protagonist ends up being a young boy which offers a nice change to "The Final Girl" and he is very ably played by Tommy Nelson.

This is a superior horror film. It tears into your eyes and brain unapologetically making a mockery of Hollywood franchise horror like Saw or Final Destination.  This is horror how it used to be done. And it is done very, very well.