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Halloween night, and four narky emo slackers break down in the middle of nowhere. Off they trek to a nearby farm, little knowing that Grandma and Gramps have just been savaged by some seriously belligerent bats. As if resigned to the bare-bones 70s exploitation horror they've stumbled into, the kids gamely split up to be picked off one by one by the bats and their zombified victims. Minimal and bloody as they come, but The Roost is an empty nest.

While never stepping into winking, Scream territory, this is a film proudly knowing of its horror roots - chiming with George A Romero and Sam Raimi most frequently - and is bookended with a campy riff on the Tales From The Crypt -style late-night TV horror-fests, although this seems to have been added to pad out the running time as much as to create an ironic space around the gore. A few able jump sequences aside, even at 80-minutes long The Roost can seem terribly slow.

"SHORT ON CHARACTER"

Almost completely without funds, first-time writer/director Ti West gets away with as many tricks as he can in boosting the tension - low lighting; empty frames with off-screen, soundtracked action; a scraping violin score - and he is backed up by a fair, naturalistic cast. The let down, though, is his script, which is short on character, wit, and indeed, length. Chopped down, The Roost would make a great, jumpy short - or, combined with another tale it could made much more of its framing device. At least, the crisp showcasing of horror movies past suggest West as a talent to watch.