There are object lessons to be learned in how to do and how not to do horror in this week's DVD selection. The masterclass comes in the form of James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932), which exudes the subtlety that seems to be the watchword of a new generation of horror makers. Adapted by Benn W. Levy and RC Sherriff from JB Priestley's 1927 novel, Benighted, this meticulously made Universal romp has given its name to a sub-genre that includes everything from William Castle's loose and decidedly lacklustre 1963 remake and Jim Sharman's enduringly popular musical parody, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), to sitcoms like The Munsters (1964-66) and cartoons like Scooby Doo, Where Are You? (1969-70). But in subverting the box-office behemoth he had created with Frankenstein (1931), Whale also looked over his shoulder, as he borrowed heavily from such silent classics as Roland West's The Bat (1926) and Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary (1927).

Having narrowly missed a landslide while motoring to Shrewsbury in a downpour, bickering marrieds Philip (Raymond Massey) and Margaret Waverton (Gloria Stuart) and their passenger, Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) seek shelter in a remote manse in the Welsh countryside. The door is opened by the scarfaced butler, Morgan (Boris Karloff), who beckons them inside while he fetches the owner, Rebecca Femm (Eva Moore) and her gaunt brother, Horace (Ernest Thesinger). She is reluctant to allow them to stay for the night and curtly informs them that there are no beds available. However, the travellers are simply glad to have a roof over their heads and Roger brings the bags inside while Morgan helps Philip park the car in the stables. 

Over a glass of gin, Horace explains that he is of a nervous disposition and dreads being locked up in the house with Morgan, who has been known to turn dangerous when drunk. The religious Rebecca has little sympathy for her sibling and mocks the fear of death that comes from his denial of God before offering to show Margaret where she can change out of her wet things. Proudly declaring her disdain for electric lighting, she leads her guest along a gloomy corridor to the room in which her free-spirited younger sister had died in agony after falling from her horse. Rebecca's face distorts in the old mirror, as she curses the antics of her decadent father, Sir Roderick (Elspeth Dudgeon), who is 102 and bedridden. But she also attacks Margaret for wearing a gossamer gown that will one day rot like her white flesh and she screams when Rebecca suddenly lays a hand on her chest. 

Snooping through the door, Morgan watches as Margaret opens a window and is blown back by the intruding gale. She cries out in shock and struggles to finish dressing before pulling in exasperation at the unresponsive door. But she finally makes her way along the corridor, with curtains billowing from each window, and is relieved to rejoin the others in time for supper. Rebecca silences Horace as he questions the need to say grace in a household that has long ceased to expect blessings. But Roger tries to lighten the mood, as Horace offers everyone potatoes, Rebecca cut bread and Morgan passes the slices along the table, while casting furtive glances at the discomfited Margaret. 

She is relieved, therefore, when there is a loud knock at the door and Morgan admits Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and his companion, Gladys DuCane (Lilian Bond). A bluff northerner who is used to getting what he wants, Sir William dries off by the fire, while Gladys accepts a pair of shoes from Roger, as her own are soaked through. Horace invites them to share their supper and Sir William starts singing `The Roast Beef of Old England' without noticing the look of disapproval on Rebecca's face. 

After supper, Horace joins his guests around the fire. Sir William complains that they are all so guarded that they have revealed nothing about themselves during a two-hour conversation. Philip mentions something about Margaret's intuition and Horace asks if it extends to realising that he is holed up in this godforsaken pile because he is hiding from the police. Nobody asks him why, however, as Sir William and Roger get into a heated exchange about having a purpose in life. As a war veteran, Roger admits that he is struggling to find a niche and Sir William accuses him of looking down on him because he's a self-made man. He continues that he set out to ruin his rivals after they snubbed his beloved wife, Lucy, for wearing a cotton frock at a soirée and a silence descends before Gladys owns up to being a chorus girl named Perkins, who probably wouldn't dating a man like Sir William if she wasn't so bad at her job. 

Needing a drink, Gladys accompanies Roger to the stable to fetch a bottle of whisky from the car. The door slams behind her and she is spooked when Morgan (who is in his cups) smashes his hand through the kitchen window to make a grab at her ankle. She sinks down on the running board of the car and allows Roger to dry her feet, while slugging from the bottle. Back in the house, the lights go out and Rebecca sends Horace to collect a lantern from the table on the top landing. However, he is reluctant to go, especially after hearing a thin voice calling out from a neighbouring room, and he persuades Philip to run the errand for him, while he hides out in his bedroom. On reaching the landing, Philip finds a padlocked door and notices the remains of a meal on the table beside the lamp. 

Downstairs, Rebecca asks Sir William to close the window in her sister's old room and Margaret makes shadow puppets on the wall to amuse herself. However, she gets a shock when what looks like Rebecca's shadow appears beside her and she rushes to the front door to call for Roger and Gladys. As she turns back into the room, she sees Morgan lumbering towards him and tries to stop his rapacious progress by pushing chairs in his path. Undaunted, he overturns the table and makes a lunge for Margaret, who manages to escape and cling to her husband when he appears on the staircase. He throws a punch at Morgan, who is far too strong and pushes him aside. But Philip succeeds on knocking him unconscious with the lamp and the mute brute tumbles down the stairs. 

As the Wavertons go to investigate the childlike voice that Philip had heard, Roger and Gladys canoodle on the backseat of the car. He tells her about losing the love of his life to a darn good chap and she explains the platonic nature of her relationship with Sir William. She insists he's a nice man and has never recovered from losing his soulmate and hopes that he won't mind too much that she has lost her heart to someone new. Turning to Roger, she asks if he would let her live with him so that she can turn him into a useful citizen. Holding her close, he hints that he has a better arrangement in mind, but suggests that they had better return to the house before the path gets too muddy. 

Carrying Gladys to the door, Roger is surprised to see the state of the room when Sir William wakes from a nap to let them in. He admits to not knowing where the others have gone before pressing Gladys into confessing that she has fallen for Roger. She leaves the men alone and Roger confides that he intends proposing marriage in the morning and hopes that Sir William will come to the wedding. Accepting his fate, he congratulates Roger on the best night's work of his life and suggests they start to tidy up the mess. 

Meanwhile, Philip and Margaret have stumbled across Sir Roderick, an emaciated figure with a wispy white beard who looks tiny in the large bed at the far end of his cavernous bedroom. He sips water and tells the Wavertons about the threat posed by Morgan. However, he also explains that he only keeps the brutish butler because he is the only one who can control his mad son, Saul (Brember Willis), who is kept under lock and key because he keeps threatening to burn the house down. Margaret is terrified when Sir Roderick reveals that Morgan may well set Saul free if he feels resentful enough and Philip rushes downstairs to find Horace peeping out from behind his bedroom door to reveal that Morgan has come to and has stomped upstairs to see Saul. 

As the guests gather in the hall, Morgan stumbles down the stairs and it takes all three men to bundle him into the kitchen. Roger returns to check on Margaret and Gladys, who have refused to join Rebecca in her room. But she locks the door off the kitchen corridor and strands Philp and Sir William, leaving Roger with no option but to hide the women in a cupboard as Saul makes his way downstairs. 

Initially, he seems pleased to see Roger and declares that Horace and Rebecca have been keeping him prisoner because he knows that they killed their sister, Rachel. But he soon reveals his insanity by grabbing the carving knife from the floor and ordering Roger to sit at the table so that he can tell him everything he has learned about fire. Desperate to humour the old man, Roger lets him prattle. However, he becomes demented on recalling how Saul felt threatened by David in the Old Testament story and he throws the knife at Roger when he tries to grab the poker from the fireplace. 

Crashing a chair over his head, Saul knocks Roger out and seizes a log from the grate and rushes upstairs in order to set light to the landing curtains. As Philip and Sir William attempt to break out of the kitchen and Morgan batters at the passage door, Roger staggers up the stairs to stop Saul. They tussle and fall over the splintering bannister, just as Morgan gets free. He releases Margaret and Gladys from the cupboard and is leering at the former when she tells him that Saul has been badly hurt. Morgan rushes to cradle his only friend and carries his body up the stairs, while Philip consoles Margaret and Sir William shares Gladys's joy when she discovers that Roger is still alive.

The next morning, Horace comes down as if nothing untoward had happened. As the birds sing, he announces that the floods have subsided and, as Rebecca scowls at the window, he bids the Wavertons a fond farewell when they leave to call an ambulance. Roger wakes with his head resting in Gladys's lap, as she leans back on the dozing Sir William. A cock crows and she reminds him that he had promised to ask her something in the cold light of day and they kiss (with Sir William snoring in the background), as Roger pops the question. 

Considering it's now 86 years old, this is nowhere near as creaky an old dark house as it might have been. The performances may belong to the early days of talkies, but that only adds to the charm of a pitch dark comedy that somehow manages to lampoon clichés as quickly as it establishes them. The acerbity of the wit certainly remains undiminished, with Thesiger, Moore and Laughton (on his Hollywood debut) particularly relishing dialogue that feel remarkably fresh. But, then, Karloff succeeds in conveying both menace and pathos without uttering an intelligible word. Mention should also be made of Elspeth Dudgeon, who was supposedly cast as Sir Roderick because Whale was unable to find a male actor who looked suitably ancient. Billed as `John Dudgeon', the 60 year-old delivers a warning to Massey and Stuart with merely a hint of repentance for the sins that Moore is convinced are being visited upon her and her brothers. 

Collaborating again with producer Carl Laemmle, Jr., cinematographer Arthur Edeson, production designer Charles D. Hall (who excels himself), special effects guru John P. Fulton and make-up artist Jack P. Pierce, Whale recaptures the Expressionist ambience that had made Frankenstein so compelling. But what is most striking is the blend of humour and horror that would make The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) even more memorable. Whale also found room for Priestley's musings on the sense of disillusion and detachment in postwar Britain, with the scenes touching upon Douglas's battle-scarred ennui and Laughton's one-man assault on the upper classes contrasting with the utopian sentiments the Bradford-born writer expressed in Basil Dearden's They Came to a City (1944), which emerged towards the end of the Second World War.

Expecting to be pinned back in their seats, contemporary critics dismissed the Halloween release as gimmicky and trite and it did mediocre business Stateside, despite being a hit in the UK. Indeed, it was believed to have been lost after a 1939 revival similarly failed to find favour and it was only through the persistence of underground film-maker Curtis Harrington that a print was discovered in the Universal vaults in 1968. The resorted version was feted as a missing masterpiece. But, while it may not quite be of that calibre, this 4K makeover remains hugely enjoyable and should not be missed.

Only a handful of features have been made on the Channel Islands. A number centre on the wartime occupation by the Nazis and range from Ralph Thomas's charming comedy, Appointment With Venus (1951), through standard actioners like Terence Young's Triple Cross (1966) and Clive Rees's The Blockhouse (1973) to Paul Campion's supernatural chiller, The Devil's Rock (2011), and Christopher Menaul's tribute to resistance heroine Louisa Gould, Another Mother's Son (2017). Among the other disparate titles set or filmed on Guernsey and Jersey are Michael Anderson's The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), Seth Holt's Danger Route (1967), Alejandro Amenábar's The Others (2001), István Szabó's Being Julia (2004) and Graham Fallows's mockumentary, Southern Softies (2009). Now Coz Greenop's Dark Beacon can be added to this exclusive list. 

Several months after her lover suddenly disappeared, April Pearson tracks her down to La Corbiéthe, a lighthouse on a tidal island near St Brelade on the south-western edge of Jersey. Hoping to have left her old life behind, Lynne Anne Rodgers is less than pleased to see Pearson. But the sounding of the alarm means that she would not be able to make it back across the causeway before the tide comes in and Rodgers reluctantly invites Pearson to spend the night. 

Despite expecting a cool reception, Pearson is surprised to see Rodgers snap at her mute daughter, Kendra Mei, while making a fish supper. But, while they chat more amicably on the lighthouse balcony after Rodgers puts Mei to bed, Pearson notices how frequently her friend takes a slug on a half bottle of whisky. Waking in the night with the sensation that she is not alone in her room, Pearson wanders into the kitchen for a glass of water and sees Rodgers sleeping on the sofa. As she drinks, she feels Rodgers standing beside her and their fingers touch before Pearson senses that Rodgers is holding back and she pulls away and returns to bed.

The following morning, Rodgers gives Mei a lesson on erosion and Pearson questions her home-schooling methods. However, Rodgers spots a figure lurking beneath the cliffs and urges the others to return to the lighthouse as quickly as possible. Pearson is puzzled by her erratic behaviour. So, when Rodgers has a nap, she uses a hairpin to open the door to a locked room. Mei appears behind her and they look around the bric-a-brac stored in the room. Pearson recognises a photograph of Rodgers's husband, Toby Osmond, but thinks nothing untoward about it.

Noticing that Rodgers has vanished, Pearson ventures on to the viewing platform and sees her friend on the cliff edge. Rushing over the rocks, Pearson ducks down to prevent Rodgers from seeing her and is surprised to find that she has disappeared again, leaving a rope dangling into the sea. On returning to the lighthouse, Pearson hears Rodgers coming in behind her with a pair of crabs for dinner. Rodgers lets her know that she doesn't appreciate her snooping and Pearson feels hurt, as she is only trying to help her. She suggests leaving this godforsaken spot, but Rodgers insists she prefers being far from the madding crowd. 

Pearson has a shower and notices a drawing of a hooded figure standing over a dead dog that Mei has scrawled on the tiles. As she had spotted feeding bowls, Pearson is perplexed and she becomes even more agitated when she realises that Mei is not in the lighthouse. Despite being the worse for drink, Rodgers snaps into action and they find the child kneeling beside the body of her slaughtered pet. That night, she wets the bed and, when Rodgers and Pearson come to her room to check on her, they are astonished when she lets out a piercing scream. 

They take Mei to see doctor Jon Campling, who conducts some tests. He reassures them that she has calmed down, but suggests that they keep an eye on her for a few days. Campling can see no reason why Mei can't talk and urges Rodgers to let her mix with children of her own age. Back at the lighthouse, Rodgers is spooked to find the front door open and she goes from room to room with a knife. She accuses Pearson of breaking into the boxroom and flinches when her friend reminds her that her husband is dead and poses no threat to her. Rodgers promises Mei that they are safe, but she seems far from convinced. 

Returning from burying the dog, Pearson finds Mei standing over her slumbering mother brandishing a knife. Waking with a start, Rodgers realises her daughter is in a trance and tries to coax her into letting go of the blade. However, Mei cuts deep into the palm of Rodgers's hand and runs to her room clutching the gold ring she had found among her father's belongings. Pearson goes to console her and confides that she also thinks she has found someone prowling around the island. 

At this point, we flashback to a party some months before. Osmond spots Rodgers and Pearson smooching on the patio and accuses his wife of being too selfish to be a wife and mother. He talks her into leaving the gathering and having a heart-to-heart looking out to sea. Rodgers pleads with him to give her a second chance, but he cites the Halo Effect in lamenting that she uses her looks and charm to dupe people into believing she's perfect. He almost feels sorry for Pearson because she has also been fooled by Rodgers's façade. But he knows that she's a controlling, narcissistic drunk and he suddenly grabs her by the hand and jumps her off the cliff. She struggles in the water and her ring sinks to the bottom, as she swims for the surface and Osmond drowns. 

Pearson dresses the wound on Rodgers's hand and pleads with her to leave the lighthouse and return to the mainland with her. She reminds her that this is Osmond's house and that she is torturing herself with the associations. Snapping to her senses, Rodgers seems to agree and barges into the boxroom with a bin bag, whose contents she torches in a metal dustbin. When Pearson comes to check on her, Rodgers panics that Mei has been left alone indoors and rushes back her room. She notices she is trying to hide the wedding ring and snaps at her for disobeying orders to keep out of the locked room. 

As Rodgers goes on to the rocks (seemingly oblivious to the spectral figure at the other end of the beach), Pearson climbs under Mei's quilt and tells her that her nurse mother also had a drinking problem and reassures Mei that she knows how it feels to see the person you love most in the world slowly becoming somebody you no longer recognise. In order to relax, Pearson takes a bath. But, as she dozes in the tub, Osmond materialises and forces her head under the suddenly black water. Hearing the commotion, Mei runs to the door, but is unable to call her mother for help. 

Rodgers realises something is amiss and breaks down the bathroom door to see the sea-ravaged ghost of her late husband standing before her. He follows her into the bedroom and the door slams shut, as Pearson resurfaces in the bath. Dressing quickly, she grabs Mei and ventures into the corridor in time to see the bedroom door open and Rodgers turn round to face her. Clutching a bottle, she sinks to her knees and asks her lover to help her. They kiss passionately. But Rodgers bites Pearson's tongue and she reels away in horror, as she suspects that Osmond has possessed her. However, she knows from past experience that it's the drink that has taken over her friend and she grabs the carving knife to protect herself. 

As the tide alarm sounds from the island, Pearson beckons Mei to her side and they make a break for the causeway when Rodgers lurches forwards and is stabbed in the stomach. Reeling from the loss of blood, she tries to give chase. But the water laps over the concrete and she is swept away to be greeted by her drowned spouse. Watching on in terror, Pearson reaches the shore with Mei draped around her. However, any thoughts that they are safe when they return to the city are quickly dashed when Pearson collects Mei from school and she hears the child greeting her mother in the backseat. 

British cinema has a long tradition of lighthouse chiller stretching back to Michael Powell's The Phantom Light (1935), Roy Boulting's Thunder Rock (1942) and Jim O'Connolly's Tower of Evil (1972) and coming forward to Simon Hunter's Lighthouse (1999), Craig Rosenberg's Half Light (2006) and Chris Crow's The Lighthouse (2016). Coz Greenop's sophomore outing falls somewhere in between, as it lacks the brooding atmosphere of the first three titles while demonstrating considerably more restraint than at least a couple of the others. Written with Lee Apsey, the screenplay opens with the cliff leap and makes a rather awkward return to it halfway through to suggest that Rodgers may not be quite the innocent victim she seems. However, the pair fail to generate much suspense or shock value out of the denouement, as Osmond's lurking presence lacks the requisite sense of menace, while Rodgers struggles to convey being under the influence of two kinds of malevolent spirits. 

Nevertheless, Pearson makes a plucky heroine, while Mei is suitably wide-eyed and vulnerable. Moreover, the ever-dependable Haider Zafar makes splendid use of the coastal scenery, with the camera hovering on a drone above the rocks and waves around the first concrete lighthouse in the British Isles. Max Sweiry's score is also effectively understated, while the three Elcko songs that crop up in the early scenes have an eerie quirkiness that helps establish the uneasy mood.

It's no longer enough to unleash zombies on a metropolis and sit back to watch the carnage. So, debuting Irish director David Freyne has added a little political allegory to The Cured to spice things up a bit. The references to the Troubles may not be particularly subtle, while the scrupulously rationed jolts feel a touch calculated. Yet, with its mournful tone and murky visuals, this merits mention alongside such recent Irish horrors as David Keating's Wake Wood (2011) and Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal (2014).

An opening caption informs us that, while mainland Europe had controlled the Maze Virus that had caused violent psychosis in the infected, it had run rampant in Ireland. An antidote had eventually been found, with 75% of Irish victims being successfully treated. But the Cured continue to remember everything they did while afflicted and, with the last wave about to be reintegrated into society, the government has to decide what to do with the Resistants. 

As American reporter Ellen Page discovers while gathering vox pops in Dublin, not everyone is pleased about the Cured being released into the community. But she welcomes brother-in-law Sam Keeley into the home she has shared with young son Oscar Nolan since husband Peter Campion was attacked by a Maze manic. Despite being tormented by his memories, Keeley has taken a job at the care centre, where doctor Paula Malcomson tells him that he can't be re-infected and that carriers don't prey on the Cured. He is assigned to nurse Hilda Fay, whom Malcomson is keen to help, as they were once lovers. But not everyone is as sympathetic to the plight of the infected, with Tom Vaughan-Lawlor's father, Barry McGovern, disowning him for killing his mother. 

He was a lawyer running for public office before being bitten and resents having to work as a cleaner and live in a halfway house. But army commander Stuart Graham enjoys throwing his weight around and punches Vaughan-Lawlor for disrespecting his authority. The next day, Vaughan-Lawlor spots Page leaving for work and they chat on a bench about her loss and his ordeal and she feels sorry for him when he reveals how traumatic it was to feel your humanity slipping away as the hunger rose inside. However, he is convinced that the public are so afraid of the Maze that they will support the eradication of Resistants and Cured alike and he persuades Keeley to join his underground cell after he witnesses a female patient being gunned down by two soldiers who had been taunting her. 

Keeley is pleased when Nolan gives him a model knight on a white horse. But he keeps having flashbacks to the day he killed his brother and can't bring himself to tell Page the truth. He also denies having anything to do with the Cured Alliance after she sees Vaughan-Lawlor protesting an arrest she was covering for boss Annie Ryan. On returning from a walk in the country, they are having supper when Vaughan-Lawlor comes to the house and embarrasses Keeley by asking Page if she could forgive those who widowed her. He also warns Keeley that he can't walk away from the alliance now that he has thrown a petrol bomb and reminds him that his future depends on united resistance to the anti-Cured backlash. 

Graham pays Page a visit and leaves her a confidential file containing evidence of Vaughan-Lawlor's baleful influence on Keeley. She snoops around the halfway house and is spotted by resident Leslie Conroy, who pins her against a wall. Vaughan-Lawlor calls Conroy off, but tells Page that the Cured have a right to defend themselves against bigotry and intimidation. Sensing menace in his voice, she tries to leave and is forced to escape through a window after she is chased through the building. 

While Page watches the footage she managed to record, Nolan paints his uncle's face before Keeley carries him to his bedroom. He pauses on the threshold, as this was where he attacked Campion. But he has no sooner washed his face than he is attacked by an intruder in the house and he seeks out Vaughan-Lawlor for advice. On going back to the halfway house, however, Keeley is surprised to find that Malcomson is in cahoots with the Alliance because Fay has been placed in quarantine after trying to attack her. As they debate what action to take, the premises are raided after Page tips off Graham that Vaughan-Lawlor is planning something and Keeley is detained. 

During his interrogation, Graham reminds Keeley that Vaughan-Lawlor infected him and that he is a danger to society. But it's only when his friend tells Page to ask her brother-in-law how Campion died that he realises he can't be trusted and, after Page throws him out for hiding the truth, Keeley leads Vaughan-Lawlor into an ambush. However, Vaughan-Lawlor murders Graham and Keeley reports for work the next morning as Alliance members seize control of the secure unit. Malcomson types in the security code to release Fay. But accomplice David Herlihy opens all of the doors along the quarantine corridor, where Keeley just happens to be standing. 

Although he is immune, the troops on guard are not and the infected set upon them with relish. As she watches from the CCTV room, Malcomson notices that Fay has remained in her cell and she ventures down to sit beside her. Fay reaches out a hand and tearfully accepts a kiss on the lips, but she is powerless to prevent Malcomson from being gored by an unseen assailant. 

Sensing something is wrong, Page takes an axe and heads for the school to find Nolan. However, she is diverted by the soldiers tracking down the zombies and can only call across the road to ask Keeley to collect his nephew. He arrives at the gates to find teachers being savaged and is relieved to sweep Nolan into his arms. But Vaughan-Lawlor is bent on revenge and follows Keeley with an iron bar. Urging the boy to flee, Keeley tries to take a stand and is being pulped by the furious Vaughan-Lawlor when he is picked off by a sniper. His body has vanished, however, by the time Keeley plucks Nolan from beneath a car, where he has been chased by a pair of female zombies. 

Pausing on the way home to shoot two marauders, Page is glad to greet Keeley and Nolan. Such is her relief, however, that she fails to see a figure lingering in the shadows and she is distraught when she realises that Nolan has been wounded. She raises the pistol to put him out of his misery, but Keeley promises her that he can be cured and she tearfully takes his word, as he disappears into the night with the boy in his arms. But, as Page watches news reports of the all-clear being contradicted by rumours of a colony forming in the west, Keeley carries Nolan across a field in the hope that he can keep the boy safe until the cure is perfected. 

The revenant premise isn't the most flexible and film-makers usually need a decent subtext to sustain interest between blood-lettings. David Freyne certainly comes up with a novel variation by introducing the notion of sectarianism to this Irish scenario. But he wisely underplays the paramilitary nature of the Cured Alliance, as he pits it against both blue-helmeted UN peacekeeping troops and the more macho elements of the Óglaigh na hÉireann. There's also a hint of homoeroticism about Vaughan-Lawlor's possessive attitude towards Keeley, but this is also dialed down, as Freyne strives to keep the focus on paranoia rather than prejudice. 

He judges the picture's scale and pace well enough, although there's little suspense, even after the zombies are liberated, and draws solid performances from Page, Keeley and the unsettlingly intense Vaughan-Lawlor. Freyne also makes steady use of Piers McGrail's restless camera and Jens Rosenlund Petersen's imposing sound design, which is capably complemented by a moody score by Rory Friers and Naill Kennedy. Moreover, he and make-up designer Julie-Ann Ryan avoid depicting the infected as rabid monsters, with their pallor merging in with the drab browns and mouldly greens that dominate Conor Dennison's production design.

Daniel Jerome Gill becomes the latest first-time feature maker in a lengthening line to expand an acclaimed short, as he transforms a 2009 outing into Modern Life Is Rubbish, a flashbacking 1990s romcom that takes its title from a Blur album and contains echoes of everything from Stephen Frears's 2000 adaptation of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity to Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer (2009). Written by jobbing tele-scribe Philip Gawthorne, this nostalgic wallow affords Gill an overdue opportunity to call the shots after spending the last 18 years as an assistant director on a range of big- and small-screen projects. However, despite some neat visual touches, he struggles to impose his personality on material that rarely rises above the generic.

Aspiring pop star Josh Whitehouse gets home late after a gig just as girlfriend Freya Mavor's alarm goes off and she heads across London to the advertising agency where she works. She returns that night with some cardboard boxes and announces she is moving out. As she sorts through the CDs, however, the sight of Blur: The Best Of reminds her of meeting Whitehouse in an independent record shop when he had tried to show off by listing the reasons why she shouldn't buy such a cynical cash-in. In fact, Mavor knows as much about Blur as he does and he manufactures a second meeting at a bubble disco, during which they quiz each other about their likes and dislikes before kissing on the dance floor and tumbling into bed. 

Fumblings with a condom and the knobs of Mavor's radio follow before they roll off the mattress to make love on the floor. But she is now ready to box up such memories, along with her belongings. As she works, she asks how Whitehouse is getting on with his band, Head Cleaner, and we flashback to see him bickering with bassist Will Merrick and drummer Matt Milne about who should front their three-piece. Barman Steven Mackintosh is amused by their deliberations and offers to put them in touch with Ian Hart, a legendary producer who seems to have guided everyone from The Smiths to Oasis on their way to the top. 

However, Mavor had never been convinced by the band's name and she complains that she would have less sorting to do if Whitehouse had overcome his objection to digital technology and kept his music on an iPhone instead of their bookshelves. Yet his refusal to succumb to the latest fads and trends had been part of his appeal when they had talked into the night over a joint about their desert island discs. But, while he sulks on the sofa as Mavor beavers away, he has sentimental memories of his own about the night they first declared their love for each other and he carefully places a ticket for the gig in his wallet. Indeed, they are so simpatico that, when they drive through a tunnel while singing along to the radio, they are perfectly in sync with the track when the signal returns. 

Moreover, thanks to Hart whipping up the crowd at an open mike session, Head Cleaner also seem to be heading in the right direction. Deciding to move in together, Whitehouse and Mavor cover each other in paint while decorating, walk across the zebra crossing on Abbey Road and quote the lyrics to Lou Reed's `Perfect Day' at the end of a sun-dappled trip to the park. She even inspires him to write a song while chopping vegetables. But Mavor worries about the bills and feels her heart sinking when Tower Records closes on Piccadilly Circus, as her greatest ambition had been to see an album cover she had designed on display there. Whitehouse hardly helps, as he refuses to consider a proper job while Hart still has hopes about the band breaking through. So, with much reluctance, she joins best friend Jessie Cave at a trendy ad agency 

Just as the bottom seems to be falling out of her world, the box containing her CDs disintegrates on the fire escape and Whitehouse whisks Mavor back to the flat to show her the booklet hidden inside the limited edition CD of Radiohead's Kid A album. He explains the benefits of being able to hold the packaging and laments that everything risks disappearing into cyberspace. But, while Mavor feels a tingle when he takes hold of her hand, she has heard his grizzling before and stalks out of the room. This reminds her of the time she had let her frustrations show at a rain-soaked Reading Festival and informed Whitehouse that she needed time to think because there was more to life than heating beans in a tent and prattling about demo tapes that somehow never get recorded. 

Her need to consider settling down as she approaches 30 comes as something of a shock, as it's not readily apparent from the action that a decade has passed since Mavor and Whitehouse first met. But the growing gulf between them becomes obvious when he discovers she has bought an iPod while they're attending an art show that's being promoted by her company. He launches into a rant about integrity and creative pain that culminates in him smashing an exhibit and Mavor breaking up with him on the banks of the Thames. She leaves the flat in a less melodramatic manner, however, and holds back the tears after kissing Whitehouse on the cheek. He slumps into his armchair and clutches his father's blue guitar and one of Mavor's sweaters. But he is reminded of how irritating she can be when the CD he is listening to sticks because she has scratched it. 

Reduced to kipping on mother Sorcha Cusack's sofa, Whitehouse is dismayed when she buys him an iPhone for his birthday. But Mavor is no happier in her swanky new apartment and keeps doodling Head Cleaner logos on her notepad at work, as she works on cheesy apps for lovers to send each other messages (and pop-up ads). However, romance blossoms with workmate Tom Riley and he offers to give Mavor some space when she bumps into Whitehouse working alongside Merrick in a coffee bar. But she insists she is over her ex and kisses Riley when they dance to the same track at a silent disco. Whitehouse is also trying to move on with American Daisy Bevan after he mistakes her for his Tinder date after he finally starts using his phone. But their first bedroom encounter is spoiled when she puts on a song with prior connections and then bad-mouths Radiohead. 

Gutted to see Mavor happy with Riley when he shows up on her doorstep with a bunch of flowers, Whitehouse is in no mood to write a new song when Hart gets the band a make-or-break gig at The Forum. But he goes on and is having a blast when he starts imagining every girl in the audience is Mavor. He rushes off stage, with dozens of smartphones filming his dramatic exit. Yet, as he skulks in his dressing-room, Hart informs him that he is ready to take the next step, as he has finally suffered for his art. Moreover, he admits that he isn't a pop Svengali but an assistant manager at Tesco who lived with his dad in Milton Keynes. 

Amused and buoyed, Whitehouse vows to clean up his act and get Mavor back. He gets a haircut, but is still recognisable as the `crying guitarist' who has taken the Internet by storm. Indeed, Mavor sees the clip just before she is about to leave for a romantic weekend with Riley and he lets her go with ridiculous good grace. He also hands over the parcel that has arrived for her and she follows the clues hidden inside to embark upon a treasure hunt through some of the places she had been with Whitehouse. She finds him waiting for her at Greenwich Park and he promises he has changed and simply wants to make her happy. Quoting both Jerry Maguire and Friends, she forgives him and they kiss. 

It's not entirely clear what message this paean to conformity is seeking to convey, but it brings to mind James Kermack's Hi-Lo Joe, in which another maverick kicking against the system decides to tow the line for love. But there are so many references, allusions and homages floating around that this almost feels like a piece of mixtape cinema. Gill and Gawthorne can claim that the iconoclasts of the nouvelle vague adopted the same tactics, but this keeps too unswervingly to the middle of the road for this to be anything other than a conventional date movie. 

That's not a criticism per se, as the asides on the dehumanising impact of gadgetry are wholly valid, as is the lament for the passing of physical film and music formats. Yet, ironically, it's a viral video that brings the lovebirds back together without having aged a day in the decade they've been an item. Sniping aside, Whitehouse and Mavor make an engaging couple, who feel right for each other even when they are as wrong as Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney were in Stanley Donen's Two For the Road (1967), which also used non-linear fragments to chronicle a crumbling romance. However, too much of the support playing falls below the standard set by the leads, while the songs composed by Ben Parker and Matthew Racher go some way to explaining Head Cleaner's struggle to find an audience. Nevertheless, Gill and editor Peter Christelis devise some neat scene transitions, while the climactic memory lane montage is rather delightful in its affirmation of that old Beatle maxim, `all you need is love'.

A quick look at the shorts 96 Ways to Say I Love You (2015) and The Exit (2016) should give you an idea of what to expect from actress-turned-director Daisy Aitkens's feature debut, You, Me and Him. Slick, assured and nowhere near as amusing as they think they are, the entries in this loose trilogy on love and commitment have been produced by Georgia Tennant, the wife of onetime Doctor Who, David Tennant, and the daughter of Sandra Dickinson and onetime Doctor Who Peter Davison, who cameo in a ménage romcom that is far too glib to appeal to mainstream audiences and way too patronising to appeal to the LGBTQ+ constituency that it so gauchely exploits. 

Christmas is coming to Stratford-upon-Avon and 39 year-old lawyer Lucy Punch is feeling good about life with her pink-haired artist girlfriend Faye Marsay until she learns that a colleague is leaving to have a baby and she becomes debilitatingly broody. Boss Don Warrington is hardly sympathetic, as he pries into the dynamics of Punch's physical relationship, while Marsay has enough trouble getting up in the morning and finding some clean clothes to be ready for motherhood. So, she is taken aback when Punch proposes marriage out of the blue and then springs the idea of having a child at a family party. 

Barely speaking after Marsay and friend Tessie Orange-Turner are arrested for being under the influence of hash brownies on a fairground merry-go-round, the pair attend a party being thrown by recently divorced neighbour, David Tennant. However, when Punch springs the news that she has already started a course of artificial insemination, they have a blazing row and Marsay gets drunk and tumbles into bed with Tennant, while Punch goes home to her plummily affluent parents, Gemma Jones and David Warner, who haven't quite come to terms with the fact that their daughter is a lesbian. 

When Marsay comes to beg forgiveness, Punch is overjoyed. But, when they find out on the same day that they are both pregnant, Punch chucks Marsay's clothes out of an upstairs window and throws a peace offering cake into Tennant's bedroom. She relents when Marsay arrives on the doorstep with a pram and has brother Simon Bird draw up an agreement that they will meet each other's parents and inform Tennant that he is going to be a father, but not let him get involved in any way. However, he pleads to play an active part raising his child and, because neither mother-to-be can drive, they reluctantly accept his help. 

Having enjoyed spooking squeamish gynaecologist Nina Sosanya, Punch and Marsay take prenatal classes with Australian guru Sally Phillips, who delights in the street cred that helping a lesbian couple brings her. But Punch feels it's unfair that she is having all sorts of inconvenient side effects while Marsay is breezing along without a care in the world. Thus, she resents the fact that Tennant (who is having sympathetic symptoms) comes round to brush her hair while she's having gas attacks in court. She is also appalled when they are thrown out of Phillips's class after she finds them in the washroom examining Tennant's genitals, which have mysteriously turned orange. 

Marsay's mother, Sarah Parish, is dismayed that her daughter is expecting and urges her to have an abortion and try again when she is over her lesbian phase. She proves equally forthright when the families meet to go rowing on the Avon and she asks the nonplussed Bird if he is gay. He is affronted, but has to field the same inquiry when Tennant falls into the river while arguing with Punch and he pities him for being wet. Having just discovered she is expecting a boy, Punch has another unfortunate encounter at the supermarket when she gives some chocolate to Ingrid Oliver's kids and has to endure a tirade about how children ruin a woman's body and her life. 

Despite Tennant promising to keep his distance, he remains a fixture and Punch is frustrated by the rapport he has developed with Marsay. She asks Bird to speak to him, but they get drunk at a pole-dancing club and Bird confesses that his wife has left him. He is embarrassed, therefore, when Parish finds him standing next to a scantily clad waiter and Punch and Marsay's baby shower, which the former soon comes to find intolerable after Sunetra Sarker mistakes Marsay and Tennant for a couple. However, when she gets into a stand-up argument with Marsay in front of their guests, the latter feels abdominal pain and is rushed to hospital, where Sosanya declares her daughter to be dead in the womb. 

As Marsay is finding it hard to come to terms with her loss, Punch goes to stay with her folks. She is slightly put out when Marsay turns up to a garden party with Tennant and Orange-Turner in tow and makes her excuses to swerve posh school pal Rebecca Gethings to watch them cavorting around on a bouncy castle. Marsay leaves her friends to get canoodlingly acquainted and Punch rushes after her to ask when they can resume their relationship. But, while Marsay insists she needs more time, she has already turned the spare room into a nursery and, so, Tennant comes to the country to implore Punch to patch things up with her girl. 

No sooner has Punch proposed on one knee outside the front door than she goes into labour and Tennant drives them to the hospital. He crashes out on the chairs outside the delivery room and the action shunts forward a year to a Christmas lunch with Punch's family. Her son is dressed like an elf and Marsay now has a blonde bob because she is training to be a teacher. They remain an item, but have decided that marriage can wait, while they work out how to be mothers.

Closing in a tearing hurry after the tragic twist fails to have its desired emotional impact, this glorified sitcom leaves the audience to contemplate just how happy Punch and Marsay's ending really is. But this bittersweet gambit feels as forced as the references to Tennant's Mannism website and the recurring quotes from Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women. Clearly Aitkens intends popping Tennant's misogynist balloon and hopes she is doing her bit to counter the homophobic prejudice that Parish exhibits so brazenly at every opportunity. But Punch and Marsay's lesbianism always feels like a plot device, whose contrivance is exacerbated by the ruinous lack of chemistry between the stars. 

Punch is a fine comic performer, but this awkwardly fitting role rarely plays to her strengths and she is often reduced to stooging for Marsay's Yorkshire kook and Tennant's Scottish chauvinist. She also has to cope with having to hold her own against the innumerable guest stars who pop up with distracting regularity throughout a storyline that often feels like an aggregation of discarded sketches. The production values are solid enough and Aitkens makes decent use of the lovely setting. But, even though Aitkens wisely changed the title from Fish Without Bicycles, this always feels like a well-intentioned bid to show lesbians in a normative light rather than an insider's comic cri de coeur and, curiously, Spaniard Carlos Marqués-Marcet falls into almost exactly the same traps as bargees Oona Chaplin and Natalia Tena find three a crowd when the latter's Catalan buddy, David Verdaguer, agrees to become their sperm donor in the forthcoming Anchor and Hope.