ALSO SHOWING

THE TURNING (15)

★★ ★★★

DIRECTOR Floria Sigismondi fails to send chills down the spine with a contemporary adaptation of Henry James’s late 19th-century ghost story, The Turn Of The Screw.

In the mid-1990s, Kate (Mackenzie Davis, above) takes up a position as a live-in nanny in Maine to seven-year-old orphan Flora (Brooklyn Prince).

Arriving at a secluded manor house, Kate meets housekeeper Mrs Grose (Barbara Marten), who explains that Flora and her older brother Miles (Finn Wolfhard) are “very special”.

The nanny delves into the history of the house and its staff and as a shocking truth is revealed, Kate is driven to the brink of madness by the phantasmagorical denizens.

The Turning surrenders a weak grasp on our attention with little resistance. Davis is an empathic interloper, rippling with fear as Wolfhard and Prince oscillate between vulnerable and menacing, but her rapid descent into delirium is messy and emotionally unsatisfying.

THE GRUDGE (15)

★★ ★★★

LACKLUSTRE reboot of the horror franchise spawned by the 2003

Japanese film Ju-on about a vengeful spirit, which attaches itself to unsuspecting victims and untethers their sanity.

Three months after the loss of her husband to cancer, grief-stricken police detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) moves to Cross River, Pennsylvania with young son Burke ( John J Hansen). As he settles into a new school, she gets used to her partner, Detective Goodman (Demian Bichir). The cops attend a horrific scene in the woods, which is connected to a local property, 44 Reyburn Drive. In a bewildering mosaic of flashbacks, we encounter residents and visitors to the accursed house.

The Grudge exhibits dramatic rigor mortis from its opening frames, and we’re braced for any jump scares as poorly served cast members are dispatched with maximum splatter.

WAVES (15)

★★★★ ★ LIGHT. Shock. Heat. Ocean. Sound. A multitude of waves crest and crash with devastating consequences in writer-director Trey Edward Shults’ semi-autobiographical third feature.

Eighteen-year-old high school student Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr) is a star athlete on the wrestling team thanks to relentless training and sparring with his domineering father, Ronald (Sterling K Brown, pictured).

Dreams of excellence are threatened by a level five SLAP tear to Tyler’s shoulder, which requires surgery to avoid permanent, irreversible damage.

Instead, the teenager secretly pops his father’s prescription painkillers to push through the discomfort and maintain his golden boy status in the eyes of his stepmother (Renée Elise Goldberry).

Events spiral out of control when Tyler’s girlfriend (Alexa Demie) learns she is pregnant.