PUSHER
Dir: Luis Prieto - Starring: Matthew Coyle, Bronson Webb, Agyness Deyn.

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, now something of a flavour of the month after Drive, made his name with the Pusher trilogy, three grimy films about lowlifes and drug dealers. He's attached to this UK remake as an exec-producer but from the opening – with Guy Ritchie-style character introductions – this is clearly a slicker and more stylised beast. But the story remains the same: dealer Frank has borrowed money for a big score and struggles to repay the debt after everything goes pear-shaped.
And, while reservations about English remakes of foreign films are usually well-founded, in the instance there is no cause for concern: the cinematography is stylish – all super-saturated colour and sharp angels – and the characters, from gormless sidekick Tony to Serbian gang boss Milo (Zlatko Buric, reprising his role from the original) are well-written and convincing. The dialogue is sharp and there is palpable excitement and tension as the net closes on harried Frank. It may not have the grungy complexity of the original but it's a pretty good ride.

I have a huge distrust of films that purport to be 'based on a true story”. There is, in the 'possession” subset of horror, a particularly long and fatuous history dating back to the (wholly fictitious) Amityville Horror and beyond. Perhaps they should just say 'based on a story”. The Possession presents us with divorced parents (Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgewick) and the problems that arise when their daughter buys a wooden box containing an evil spirit. Specifically, as has become popular recently, the Jewish equivalent, a Dibbuk. From there things go downhill: weird behaviour from the kid, insect swarms and eventually a visit from the Jewish exorcist. This struggles to find anything original to say while extras reveal that none of it actually happened (but someone did once buy a spooky wooden box).

Two Little Boys had me excited. A Kiwi comedy! With Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie! And that Aussie fella from Hamish and Andy (Hamish to be precise). But, in all honesty, I didn't really get it. I really admire director Robert Sarkies (Out Of The Blue, about the Aramoana killings, was first-rate) and his writer brother Duncan, but this story of two rather dumb lunks, one of whom (Bret) accidentally runs over a Swedish tourist, didn't pop my cork. The friend he turns to for help – Deano, played by Hamish – is an idiot, and the film charts their increasingly preposterous situation and the disintegration of their mateship. Perhaps I need to watch it again in a different mood, but I found it dumb and irritating.

I think I missed Outpost, clearly an oversight on my part since the film promised Nazi zombies. Or was that zombie Nazis? No matter, since Outpost 2: Black Sun is upon us and clearly the threat of an undead thousand year Reich hasn't yet receded. By the time we catch up with them in part two NATO has been secretly fighting the Nazi menace in Eastern Europe for two weeks but that does little to deter intrepid plucky investigator Helena. She's hunting the evil scientist in charge while soldiers fight immortal stormtroopers and try to destroy the machine responsible for the reanimations. It's not much good really but at least it has Nazi zombies. Or is that zombie Nazis?

Thankfully Shelter doesn't claim to be in any way true. It does, however, also fit into the 'possession” genre, this time via a diversion into multiple personalities, as you might expect from the writer of Identity. Julianne Moore is a shrink tasked with checking out Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He has a whole bunch of personalities and after a bit of faffing around it emerges that they all belong to people who've been murdered. This – naturally – dates back to an 'ancient evil” and possession is the key. Everyone takes things Very Seriously, just as well given the ultimately risible nature of the story.