Acorn Media International, out now

When strange events occur in a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, a doctor specializing in the paranormal, her colleague, and an ex police officer decide to investigate further

This 2017 Argentinian horror movie by writer/director Demian Rugna is head and shoulders above its peers, offering some genuinely unsettling scares and imagery.

When his neighbour Walter keeps banging on the wall in the early hours, Juan goes round to confront him. There’s no reply, but as he returns to his own home he hears banging from within – the sound of his wife’s bloody corpse being thrown from wall to wall. It’s a shocking, unexpected moment that sets the scene for what follows. And in the same neighbourhood, a dead boy’s rotting body appears at the breakfast table, seemingly having clawed his way out of his grave.

Psychic investigators come onto the scene, determined to work out the cause of the paranormal activity, but they split themselves up between the separate properties, thus exposing themselves to the malevolent forces. There’s a sense of impending doom right from the outset, and when the shocks come (and there’s no shortage of them) you don’t quite believe what you’re seeing. The gore is not overdone, with the emphasis on tension and jump scares.

Verdict: A refreshing take on a tired genre, proving that there’s still life in the haunted house movie yet. 8/10

Nick Joy