James Watkins illuminates a far darker side of childhood in his terrifying thriller Eden Lake. It’s an unexpectedly intelligent British horror film with a crude and vicious social twist. Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly drive their chunky 4x4 to a secluded lake in an unspecified corner of the English wilderness. But their romantic camping trip turns into a stomach-churning fight for survival when they are hunted down by a gang of feral, knife-carrying youths.

An argument over a slashed tyre degenerates into a grisly, bloody chase that is as unpredictable as a pig hunt in Lord of the Fliesand as viscerally graphic as Straw Dogs. The sink-estate malevolence of these hard-faced and shiftless teenagers is a middle-class nightmare. Herein lies the tabloid story. The camera feeds on rushes of fear, and guilty faces. It’s a claustrophobic marvel, and an impressive debut by Watkins.

18, 90 minutes

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