The Borderlands

This is very much a standard "found footage" horror in many respects, with its subjective camera set-up, eerie setting, unexpected jolts and slam-bang pay-off. But writer/director Elliot Goldner's well-crafted feature debut wins extra points for having at its core the appealing double act of Gordon Kennedy and Robin Hill (Down Terrace). Kennedy plays a Vatican-sanctioned paranormal investigator who is sent to an isolated church in the West Country to gather evidence of an insidious presence; Hill is the tech-head who facilitates the camera traps and headcams to capture the supposed "miracle" phenomenon. It's the pair's easy-going chemistry that firmly anchors this slow-burning shocker, whose rural setting deliberately evokes The Wicker Man (a movie referenced within the narrative). Consistently witty even as things take a turn for the unnerving, this is a keen exercise in finely judged economy of style, with no stinting on disturbing atmosphere.