Director: David Twohy

As this low-budget sci-fi opens we see passengers of a spacecraft in suspended animation and Vin Diesel’s granite voiceover explains: “They say most of your brain shuts down in cryosleep. All but the primitive side… (pause)… The Animal Side… (longer pause)… No wonder I’m still awake.” Happily, the rest of David Twohy’s stylish sci-fi horror-thriller lives up to this enticing hook – only without a mega budget or wall-to-wall CGI. The plot is familiar yet tantalising: we follow the ragtag bunch as they crash on a three sun-bleached planet full of vicious, light-repelled creatures - just as a rare eclipse is about to occur. The un-famous ensemble ups the tension as we have no idea who’ll cark it next, while Diesel is a growling hulk of presence in his breakthrough. Taut, lean and suspenseful, it’s everything that empty follow-up The Chronicles Of Riddick wasn’t.