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Don't Knock Twice

4/10

Stars: Katee Sackhoff, Lucy Boynton, Nick Moran, Richard Mylan, Pooneh Hajimohammadi, Jordan Bolger, Javier Botet

Director: Caradog James

Welsh filmmakers seem to be getting a taste for horror and, in the case of Gareth Edwards at least, it can certainly lead to a lucrative Hollywood career. However, the plot of this slow but sometimes creepy frightfest pretty well maps itself out from the beginning.

Teens Chloe (Boynton, the girl from Sing Street) and Danny (Bolger) knock on the door of the spooky house inhabited by a supposed witch: 'One to wake her from her bed. Two to raise her from the dead'.

Shortly afterwards, Danny disappears and a frightened Chloe flees to the mansion(!) of her hated mother (Sackhoff), a recovering alcoholic with a new husband (Mylan), who's conveniently called away, leaving mother and daughter alone and, as it turns out, at the mercy of a demon witch (6ft 7in Botet) who crawls along like one of those things from the 'Ring' films, and has the power to 'open the wall between this world and hell'.

And Chloe, as sculptress Jess's oddball model (Hajimohammadi) tells us, is 'marked by something terrible'.

The temptation to yell 'It's behind you' becomes almost overwhelming at times, although the film is so underlit that it's often difficult to discern exactly what's going on. And, despite its inevitable twists, the ending is a little abrupt and confused.

David Quinlan

UK 2016. UK Distributor: Red & Black Films. Colour (unspecified).
93 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 24 Mar 2017