The Insane is an inventive cross-breed of Memento and The Midnight Meat Train. The ending might be a little shopworn – we’ve seen countless reiterations of this sort of thing in recent years – but everything leading up to it is horror-tastic.

The hero, Det. John Vincent (James Spofforth), haunts the streets of a city taken hostage by an "insane cult” of murderous fiends. Like Danny Boyle did in the opening scenes of 28 Days Later, filmmakers David J. Ellison and Mark Cripps use clever camera angles to suggest the city has been all but deserted. So it’s just Vincent and the assailants going head-to-head in some terrifically staged and intense fight scenes. The fights are structured like a video game. Each assailant has a different weapon and presents a new challenge. The highlight is when a masked, chainsaw-wielding psychopath (no, not Leatherface) chases Vincent down a flight of stairs. It’s a cool homage to the surreally frightening scene in American Psycho where Christian Bale chases a girl.

This is a very atmospheric film. The location shooting is top-notch, with strong depth of field in the nighttime exteriors. The stylized costumes are right out of a comic book. I wish the ending had been more original, but whatever flaws there are in the story, you can’t deny that it’s been told with confidence and wit.