Bone House

There's a new serial killer on the block, says Eugene Crowley, a creepy "mind-hunter" from the "Southern United States". We should all watch out, he says. Real-life serial killers aren't the mask-wearing freaks from the movies but ordinary people — just like us!

This new monster is nicknamed the Midnight Cowboy, thanks to his habit of whistling the film's theme tune as he does his gruesome work. Aided by slide shows, fortuitously chanced-upon video footage, and an utterly characterless sidekick called Jacob, Crowley tells us the story of the killer, who gets his kicks by slitting throats in front of an audience. No serial killer clichés here, then.

The plot thickens, or congeals, spookily enough, as the audience comes to suspect that the increasingly frenzied Crowley is himself the murderer (who, for some immediately forgettable reason, has promised to be in the theatre tonight).

But the script is found badly wanting when Crowley hypnotises Gabrielle, a witness to the Cowboy's crimes who has since lost her marbles. She relives the visceral horror of finding her parents slaughtered - and offers a calm account of what happened at the same time. "He's coming through...[scream]...the garage door...[low moan]...can't find...argh!...the key."

This sequence isn't scary; it's just noisy and long, and detracts from Bone House's essentially enjoyable daftness. Bone House ultimately succeeds in giving everyone a fright, albeit by unsubtle means.