Cert: 15

MESSING about with a ouija board has never struck me as being a particularly sensible way to spend an evening.

So it's difficult to feel any sympathy for the group of rather dim friends in this British horror flick when their impromptu sance at an all-night dance party turns into a nightmare.

Despite coming over all giggly (as ouija board users invariably seem to) our bungling amateur mediums somehow manage to summon up a djinn, or fire demon, which informs them that they are all going to die.

And sure enough, before they have even left the building, the djinn has shown that it means business by consigning one of them to an early grave.

Now if I was one of those still alive, this would encourage me to pack a suitcase with some haste and buy a plane ticket to Caracas, or somewhere equally far from the action. But this being a horror movie, the chums decide that they will all go back home and wait to be picked off one by one.

There's nothing remotely original in any of this, of course. The whole 'group of young friends being stalked and killed' genre goes way back to Friday The 13th and The Burning, and is already beyond parody, while anyone who has seen The Wishmaster will be familiar with the djinn angle.

But despite the story being woefully derivative, the film isn't quite as bad as you would imagine. Director Marcus Adams manages to create a few moments of genuine tension, and former EastEnders star Joe Absolom puts in a strong performance, standing out from an otherwise mediocre cast.

On the whole, though, this is further evidence that making great horror movies is a dying art. Ian Kelly