Going Out

Review: This week's new films

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (15)

****

If less is more when it comes to spine-tingling chills, then Paranormal Activity has got horror film-making down to a fine art.

Using the same premise as The Blair Witch Project - "discovered" footage of supernatural shenanigans happening to everyday folk - director Oren Peli squeezes every fluid ounce of fright out of a few wobbly lights and moving bed spreads.

Katie and Micah are a young couple in love. The only problem is Katie has attracted the attention of a demon (ain't that always the way?) so Micah sets up a camera in their bedroom to document the spooky goings on. Camera? Bedroom? Micah may be interested in activity of an entirely different kind but it's not long before the ectoplasm hits the fan.

He may have just taken The Blair Witch Project and stuck it in a bedroom (creepier to begin with), but Peli has taken familiar ideas and refined them, creating an unrelentingly edgy atmosphere as he builds to the big scares. Sure, not a great deal happens but the tension is unbearable.

The two lead actors, however, are not. Surprisingly for a horror film, they are a genuinely likeable pair. It makes their fates that much more devastating.

GLORIOUS 39

***

In his return to the big screen after a 10-year fling with television, prolific British writer and director, Stephen Poliakoff, weaves a web of intrigue around life in Britain on the brink of the Second World War.

Glorious 39 is a rose-tinted hybrid of historical drama and thriller - set in the Norfolk countryside and London, examining the dangerous tension between those who wished to appease Hitler and those who believed war was essential to combat the Nazis - seen through the eyes of an old English family prepared do anything to hold on to their elevated lifestyle.

When Anne Keyes (Romola Garai), the adopted eldest daughter of an influential Conservative MP (Bill Nighy), stumbles on secret recordings in an outbuilding of her decadent family home, her blissful life of servants and high tea becomes entwined in growing menace.

As war approaches, actress Anne enters a spiralling nightmare of broken trust and whispering shadows.

Bright new British star Garai revels in her role. Nighy, appearing alongside an impressive British cast, including David Tennant, Julie Christie and Christopher Lee, creepily embodies the central idea that nothing is what it seems.

It is refreshing for a film to be based on an original screenplay rather than a best-selling novel. But these powerful performances are left flat at times by a simplistic and stiff script.

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN (18)

**

As thrillers go, this is an interesting idea taken to absurd and implausible levels.

The film throws the viewer in at the deep end - barely even allowing itself time to establish a relationship between family man Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) and his wife and young daughter before two men break into his home and brutally murder them as he watches helplessly.

Prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is the man charged with putting the killers behind bars. But with insufficient evidence to convict both, he strikes a deal with the nastier one to send the other to "Death Row".

Clyde is less than happy and after 10 years of planning, the gruesome revenge killings begin. But he is unwilling to stop at the murderer of his family and starts targeting everyone involved in the murder case - even after being locked up.

It's an out of the ordinary premise - but the film's biggest problem is the lack of a single likeable character. Clyde is a bloodthirsty killer and Rice is a soulless prosecutor who will do anything to further his career.

The film becomes a waiting game to find out how Clyde is killing from jail. You wait, you speculate, you wait some more and then you are finally slapped in the face with pure disappointment when the absurd answer finally comes.

NATIVITY (U)

**

Yes, Christmas is a time of goodwill to all but this British festive flick is really pushing it.

Set in the world of the primary school Christmas play, director Debbie Issit's routine family film lacks gags or a well thought out story. Would a teacher, for example, really be able to fly off to Hollywood on the spur of the moment? In term time? With a couple of pupils in tow?

Like a parent at a real kids' play, you'll be staring at your watch waiting for it to end. Even so, it's hard not to fall for the film's heart, which is as big as a Christmas pudding and just as sweet.

Martin Freeman, as actor-turned-depressed-teacher Mr Maddens, who fools the town into thinking Hollywood is coming to watch his kids' performance, does his best with the few gags he's given while irritating Marc Wotton, as his childish assistant, deserves to be sealed in the next available rocket ship and fired into the sun.

Fittingly, it's the kids who save the film. They're loveable and funny and make the final performance a touching, if somewhat saccharine, routine.

If you're a forgiving sort and full of festive spirit, this might just fit the bill for an afternoon out with the family.