Inside the weird and wacky world of DTV

Like Rampage, Marko Mäkilaakso’s IT CAME FROM THE DESERT is an adaptation of a video game popular in the dim, distant past. This Finnishspanish riff on a 1989 homage to 1950s insect mutant movies is much fun, as party-hearty teens picnic near the irradiated ruins of a government base where evil experiments have created giant ants. Yes, it’s basically a feature-length ‘ants ruin a picnic’ joke, with a little more character bite than the usual Syfy nonsense and above-average cheap CGI monsters.

Brian O’malley’s slow-burning Irish gothic drama THE LODGERS echoes The Turn Of The Screw and The Fall Of The House Of Usher in its set-up, but eventually — along with this season’s Cold Skin and The Shape Of Water — ventures underwater for an eerie, if not exactly conclusive fishy finale. Shot in and around an ancient, reputedly haunted pile in County Wexford, it boasts a lush, decayed atmosphere and committed, strange performances from Charlotte Vega and Bill Milner as 18-year-old orphan twins living alone in the huge house, bound there (and to a set of rules) by the dictates of a folk song that warns against not being in bed by midnight or letting a stranger come inside. Of course, prohibitions get violated and weird things happen.

There’s a thesis to be written about how Austerity/brexit/broken Britain is reflected in low-budget horror comedies — though this month’s crop offer more editorial than laughter (or scares). David Gilbank’s POLTERHEIST (a medium possessed by a dead gangster bullies idiots into attempting a kidnapping) and Dominic Brunt’s ATTACK OF THE ADULT BABIES (nappy-clad establishment figures hold orgiastic rites to worship an ancient evil entity) are both ramshackle, and somehow don’t live up to their titles.