Wake Wood - movie review

It's a long time since I read much horror fiction, although in my teens I devoured a number of the short story collections published by Pan, Faber and Fontana. As for horror films, many of them seem obsessed with gore and violence, so I usually give them a miss. But fictional horror at its best can be terrific, as Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson and others have shown.

My favourite horror movie is The Wicker Man, and the very recent film Wake Wood does have some echoes of its brilliant predecessor. The only daughter of a vet and pharmacist is mauled to death by a dog, and in an attempt to cope with their overwhelming grief, the couple move to a small and remote village where they can try to rebuild their life together.

However, it soon becomes clear that there are dark goings-on in the nearby woods. Somehow, the villagers have discovered the secret of bringing a person who has died within the last 12 months back to life – but for three days only. And there are some rather spooky conditions to be met by anyone who wants to avail themselves of this chance to say goodbye for the last time.

Needless to say, the couple cannot resist temptation, and enter into a sort of Faustian pact, which has foreseeably terrible consequences. It's hokum, of course, but done surprisingly well, and the final scene is genuinely memorable and chilling. Much of the power of the film derives from the performances of Aidan Gillen and Eva Birthistle as the bereaved couple, and of Timothy Spall, who presides over the village's rituals with a mixture of geniality and menace that avoids the risk of over-acting the part into absurdity. Although there are some graphic scenes, I would recommend this film to horror fans. It isn't in the same league as The Wicker Man, but it's still a pretty good example of its kind.

Identity: Chelsea Girl - review

Questions of identity fascinate me. People who want to solve their problems by becoming a different person, people obsessed with the lives of others – these ideas form a significant element in my books. Examples include The Coffin Trail, The Arsenic Labyrinth and The Serpent Pool. So naturally I was drawn to the concept behind the newish ITV series Identity.

Identity involves a team of cops specialising in identity fraud cases. Keeley Hawes is the star, but there is strong support from a good cast, including Holly Aird and Aiden Gillen. The show was devised by Ed Whitmore, who was involved with Waking the Dead – a series which I saw only fleetingly, but thought not at all bad.

My first encounter with Identity was an episode called Chelsea Girl. The set-up is excellent – a British girl called Olivia befriends another woman in Australia. But the new friend kills her, steals her identity, and catches a plane to England. Soon the cops are on her trail, and find that she is a woman with a troubled past. Now she is returning to her roots.

This was a very fast-paced show, a thriller rather than a whodunit. The killer is quickly identified, and the only question was how much havoc the killer would cause before she was caught. The story-line was highly melodramatic, but it was entertaining, and I shall certainly take another look at Identity, as soon as time permits.