A creepy, authentically nasty little horror film, "Deathwatch" is the latest outing for BAFTA Award-winning teenage star Jamie Bell. But don't go expecting "Billy Elliot".
Bell is Charlie Shakespeare, a rookie young private in the British army, stuck on the sodden Western Front in 1915.
Naturally, he's terrified, and when the time comes to fight, he has to be forced over the top by Hugo Speer's dutiful but decent sergeant.
Together with the rest of Y Company, they charge through mustard gas towards the enemy, only for the noxious fumes to dissipate, revealing a mazy German trench.
Cut off from their battalion, scared and lost, they decide to sit tight, but as time wears on, they begin to suspect there is someone in the trench with them. Or could it be something?
Well, take a guess. Writer-director Michael Bassett can't be accused of subtlety, and there are few surprises in how "Deathwatch" plays out.
However, Bassett does display a gift for the macabre, conjuring some unsettling images on a limited budget and smartly using the soundtrack to suggest more horror than he can effectively show.
Taking his cue from Robert Wise's 1963 classic "The Haunting", he creates an aural nightmare.
The set-up, too, is similar - essentially this is a haunted house movie in a trench - but the World War I setting is enough to ensure it doesn't feel stale.
There is a question of taste in turning the terror of the Great War into popcorn chills, but in a curious fashion, "Deathwatch" is a reminder of the real-life horrors of war that action-heavy combat movies can blind us to.
Not exactly a laugh, then, but an atmospheric chiller nonetheless.
Deathwatch (2002)
