Behind the Couch

Newly married Bea and Paul (Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway) decide to take their honeymoon at her family’s secluded lakeside cabin deep in the forest. Their bliss is shattered after Paul finds Bea wandering disorientated in the forest at night and soon after she begins to seem less and less like herself. To begin with, it’s little things, like forgetfulness, but before long, her personality changes and even her grasp of language diminishes, while she insists everything is fine. As Paul’s attempts to get them to leave and go back home become increasingly desperate, he realises that they are not as alone as they thought, and something lurks in the surrounding forest, its insidious grip on Rose becoming ever more powerful…  Directed by Leigh Janiak (who co-wrote the screenplay with Phil Graziadei), Honeymoon unfurls as a deeply haunting and suspenseful two-hander. The unsettling notion that the person you have married and chosen to spend the rest of your life with, suddenly changes and

Written and directed by Pollyanna McIntosh (a familiar face in horror having starred in titles such as White Settlers [2014], Tales of Halloween [2015] and The Walking Dead [2017-2018]), Darlin’ is a powerful, socially minded sequel to Lucky McKee’s 2011 film The Woman (which stared McIntosh as the formidable titular character). It picks up the story several years later, but also works well as a standalone film, as it follows the journey of a feral girl who is rehomed in a strict Catholic boarding school where a predatory bishop attempts to civilise her to gain publicity for his failing church. Meanwhile, the woman (McIntosh again, who resumes the role here with similar conviction) leaves a bloody trail of violence as she gradually tracks down her daughter, creating a further strand of tension. While McKee’s film depicted its protagonist being beaten and physically abused into submission and ‘civility’, with Darlin’ , McIntosh adopts a much more psychological approach in her explo

Written and directed by Neasa Hardiman, Sea Fever unfurls as a slow-burning, dread-fuelled nautical tale of terror. As a mandatory requirement for her studies, introverted marine-biology student Siobhán (Hermione Corfield) joins the close-knit crew of a fishing trawler as they head out from the west coast of Ireland. They become marooned out on the Atlantic when they encounter an unfathomable life-form that ensnares the boat. As members of the crew (which include Dougray Scott and Connie Nielsen) gradually succumb to a deadly infection caused by contact with the parasitic creature, Siobhán must win the trust of the increasingly paranoid crew and find a solution before it’s too late.  With its central themes of isolation, infection and paranoia, Sea Fever echoes sci-fi horror classics such as The Thing (1982), Alien  (1979) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), but Hardiman’s approach - grounded in realism and science - well developed characters, and favouring of insidious unease