Octane Details

Embittered divorcee Madeleine Stowe searches for her teenage daughter, lost to a blood-drinking cult who scour motorway service stations for their victims, in director Marcus Adams's atmospheric horror. Liberally laced with sex-and-splatter jolts and Vanishing-style anguish, this unusual terror tale is a gripping collision of neon-lit car smashes, disorientating close-ups and well-oiled eeriness. Working as a curious take on undead mythology (Near Dark is the closest comparison), auto-focused religious mania (Crash its antecedent) and as a potent dramatisation of mental and marital breakdown, Adams's haunting danse macabre exerts a lethal grip even when navigating a few climactic speed bumps. With a great soundtrack from Orbital, it's a canny package of surreal nightmare scenarios that effectively delivers both visual and visceral thrills.

Casting an eye around the human flotsam and jetsam at a late-night roadside diner, travel-weary mother (Stowe) and... read more on Time Out