THE JESTER 15

★★★★★ OUT 10 NOVEMBER CINEMAS

Writer-director Colin Krawchuk takes a stab at adding a new monster to the Halloween cheapie market with his promising but slow feature debut. A suited mime weirdo with lethal powers, the Jester haunts a small town on Halloween, stalking estranged half-sisters (Lelia Symington, Delaney White) tenuously united for their dad’s funeral. Krawchuk mixes fun-house splatter (mind the eyes!) with themes of sorrow and regret, but neither is developed fully: the Terrifier-ish Jester is more mask than menace, while the siblings’ traumas are too rote to register emotionally.

WHEN EVIL LURKS 15

★★★★★ OUT NOW SHUDDER

Having caused a stir with 2017’s aptly titled Terrified, Argentinian writer-director Demián Rugna brings bursts of the same feverish imagination to this more expansive follow-up. When brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón) discover a – repulsively oozy – possessed person (or ‘rotten’) in their rural backwater, they decide the best course of action is to dump them elsewhere, causing the problem to spread… Bound by an over-complicated mythos, the film’s best moments are its simplest: eruptions of shocking violence that may floor even the most seasoned gorehound’s jaw.

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER 12A

Swin-Swin situation…

★★★★★ OUT 24 NOVEMBER CINEMAS

Atale of grief that’s slight but armed with two Tilda Swintons, The Eternal Daughter is Joanna Hogg’s take on 40s psychological mystery. Think Rebecca, but with more hot-water bottles.

The plot sees the elderly Rosalind (an aged-up Swinton) whisked away to a fusty manor-house hotel by her ‘fusspot’ filmmaker daughter Julie (Swinton again). As fog curls around the grounds and windows shimmer with possible spectres, Julie attempts to write a screenplay about her mother, trying to tease information out of someone clearly hiding fissures of emotional pain.

That explorative screenplay is the one we’re watching play out in front of us, which may feel self-indulgently meta from the off for some viewers. Still, there’s the pleasure of Hogg’s knack for capturing recognisable human interaction. On the surface Rosalind and Julie’s exchanges are banal, yet loaded with meaning.

Over the few nights the women stay in the hotel little actually happens, aside from nocturnal forays for hot water or a mildly anxious search for a dog. But the mother/daughter relationship shifts to deliver an emotional payoff that plays like Hogg’s version of an Inside No. 9 episode. Add to that an exploration of the role of exploitation in creating art from lived experience and this (will’o-the-)wisp of a film emerges as frustratingly slender, yet with moments of profundity.

THE VERDICT Like the hotel at its centre, Hogg’s beautiful but ponderous observational drama-slash-ghost story won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING 15

★★★★★ OUT 15 NOVEMBER CINEMAS 20 NOVEMBER NETFLIX

Adapted from Dr Ibram X. Kendi’s bestselling book, Oscar-winning documentarian Roger Ross Williams’ film explores the history of anti-Black racism in America, to eye-opening effect. Employing talking-head interviews (with academics including Dr Angela Davis and Kendi himself), archive materials and inventive animation, Williams unpicks the centuries-old trajectory of racist views, exposing how shockingly prevalent and damaging they have become across US culture. An accessible introduction to a tough subject that also poses a vital challenge to racial prejudice.

MAFIA MAMMA 15

★★★★★ OUT 17 NOVEMBER PRIME VIDEO

Middle-aged doormat Kristen (Toni Collette) gets a surprising new lease of life following the death of her estranged grandfather, whose Mafia empire she inherits. Journeying to Italy, she’s tutored in the niceties of Mob management by stern consigliere Bianca (Monica Bellucci). The effervescent Collette gives the role her all, even if a good deal of the material is beneath her. Meanwhile, director Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Miss Bala) offsets this comedy drama’s more predictable beats with an unexpected level of gore. An unlikely cross between Breaking Bad and Eat Pray Love that proves oddly satisfying.