The Galloway family gather for a reunion on a remote island, 25 years after a kidnapping. But what secrets are about to be revealed, and is there a killer among them?

The Canadian/American anthology show which features a different serial killer each season returns for a fourth season with a new home on Shudder. As story ideas go, this one has been (ahem!) done to death, from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None to Ready or Not and Knives Out. With such richly furrowed ground, you’d have to be brave to think you could do something new with this, and I’m not convinced either way yet.

The issue, as I see it, is a tonal one. A lot of time is spent in establishing the main players, a group of very unlikable, spoilt family members, acting very broadly. There’s nothing to hang onto, with just one or two peripheral ‘normal’ people that you assume will make it through.

Horror director David Cronenberg plays Galloway senior, a man dying from cancer who sets up his heirs in a battle of survival – only one will get his fortune. Oh, and did I mention that there’s a killer on the island. Among the buffoonery we get the most horrific, gory murders. I’m talking gut-spilling, limb-ripping Saw-style viscera, and suddenly it’s no laughing matter.

Verdict: An uneven opener that veers from soap cliche to censor-troubling gore – I’ve no idea where this one is going. 6/10

Nick Joy