Rotting in Romania

Reviewed - Them/Ils:WHAT would have become of the contemporary horror film if the Berlin Wall hadn't come down? Barely a week goes past without Prague, Vilnius or Budapest being offered as the site for new atrocities by the undead.

Those cities are, most often, standing in for gloomier parts of the US. But with 2005's Hostel and, now, the lean, tense Them, eastern Europe - home to Transylvania, after all - is regaining the confidence to play itself.

Somewhere between an old dark house movie and a slasher flick, this French production places a middle-class couple in a sombre pile near Bucharest and, after allowing night to fall, causes a party of hooded figures to invade their privacy. Chases in sewers follow. Eyes are gouged. Each hopeful escape is followed by a subsequent reappearance of the unsettling organisms.

Shot cheaply on digital video, Them has a satisfactorily murky look to it that heightens the grim unease. But the film is particularly notable for its singular approach to sound. Dialogue is kept to a minimum and the threat from the invaders is conveyed mostly by an odd clicking noise whose source provides the picture with its final shock.

In truth, there's only just enough material to fill up the modest running time. Them is a spare, starkly functional piece of work with barely an ounce of fat on its bloody bones. By the time the rumoured US remake comes along it will, I suspect, have rolls of cellulite spilling out from its underwear. Best catch it now then.