Here in the US, James Watkins’ directorial debut Eden Lake went straight to DVD and was distributed by Dimension Films. Of all the titles to fly under the Dimension Extreme banner though, this one was the most deserving. The movie turned out to be more of an endurance test than I could have ever anticipated. Eden Lake also manages to be both acclaimed and despised. Anyone who knows what became of Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly’s characters very well understands the mixed sentiments surrounding this movie.

British horror was struggling to hold on after the original closure of Hammer and the Video Nasties period, yet by the early 2000s, a revival had begun. It was as if the reluctance to do genre movies had been replaced with a kind of fever. Dog Soldiers, My Little Eye, Deathwatch, 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Creep, The Descent. There was...