This low-budget backwoods chiller has already gained a modicum of UK kudos, having landed the Best Feature prize at Edinburghs prestigious Dead By Dawn film festival.
Forced to use his imagination to go where the finances forbade, writer-director Sheldon Wilson creates a menacing ghost-town atmosphere that he proceeds to lace with plenty of gallows humour, as the staff of a soon-to-close sheriffs station seek to explain the sudden appearance of a knife-wielding, blood-soaked teenager (Rocky Marquette).
However, the Evil Dead deadpan would have fallen flat without the droll charm of Timothy V. Murphy, whose world-weary lawman refuses to forgive himself for the death of his girlfriend during an unsolved killing spree. This is pure B-fodder, but it has a grim wit, grisly edge, creepy score and a disconcerting denouement.