DVD: Left Bank (18)

When a blurb pledges "a nightmare of unimaginable terror", loins are girded for the worst. But when, after an hour, the worst terror to occur is an evil black powder issuing from the main character's genitals, even the most chicken-livered cushion-hugger wants gratuitous blood-letting. Can somebody here die please! Pieter Van Hees's Left Bank is an arthouse tension-builder that just takes too long to deliver. By the time Marie (Eline Kuppens) realises her new boyfriend intends to sacrifice her to a kind of Elephant Man beelzebub, you no longer care if her genitals turn into a giant razor-fanged serpent that bites her head off. I'll have my terror before I fall asleep, ta.