The Seasoning House

British special make-up/prosthetics genius Paul Hyett (The Descent, The Woman in Black) makes his directorial debut with this economically savvy and highly effective suspense shocker. In a makeshift Balkan brothel, deaf mute Angel (a dazzling Rosie Day) cares for the drugged sex slaves coerced into satisfying the needs of mercenaries on leave. When the men responsible for slaughtering her entire family arrive to indulge their twisted appetites, Angel takes brutal revenge, using crawl spaces behind the walls to carry out her bloody actions. The horror is harrowing, the splatter murders startling and the claustrophobia strongly evoked. In its nerve-shredding intensity and crucial emotional underpinning, this hard-hitter is influenced by Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski, and Hyett continues to dial up the fear right through to the final upsetting twist. Sean Pertwee and Kevin Howarth make great villains, and look out for a cameo by The Descent director Neil Marshall.