You probably thought this regular horror blog would be one of the very few places to retreat from the flag-waving of the Diamond Jubilee bank holiday weekend, right? Well, kind of, though there will be a little bit of Spirit of ‘66/stiff upper lip action as we welcome the return of that other great British institution, the Hammer horror.

Yes, dear readers, the revived Hammer Films studio’s recent cinema hit, The Woman in Black, makes its way onto DVD and Blu-ray this month. The company’s most financially successful film to date and the most successful British horror movie in twenty years sees the boy wizard Daniel Radcliffe all grown up and dealing up with vengeful spectres in Edwardian England.

Based on Susan Hill’s 1983 novel of the same name, Radcliffe plays improbably young lawyer, father and widower Arthur Kipps, sent to handle the estate of the deceased owner of the mysterious Eel Marsh House, only to face tragedy from that family’s past.

With a slow build-up of suspense without too much in the way of special effects in that classic Hammer style, alongside some decent turns from Ciaran Hinds and Janet McTeer bolstering an unspectacular performance from the star, this is a competent if slightly forgettable exercise in standard ghost story theatrics. A few screamy-faced monstrous moments stand-out but otherwise, the positive reviews are a little puzzling.

Less puzzling, though, is the critical mauling doled out to this month’s turkey, The Darkest Hour, produced by Nightwatch and Daywatch director Timur Bekmambetov. Visually similar to those Russian blockbusters, though with an even flimsier plot, the film sees Emile Hersch play a software developer visiting Moscow when the city falls victim to an assault from strange, alien blobs of sunlight.

As ridiculous as it sounds, though less enjoyable, this clichéd survivor pic with bland, balsawood characters feels like something deliberately hokey from the Troma stable, rather than a deadly serious production.

While The Darkest Hour features characters with an almost total absence of character, indie flick Absentia follows the fortunes of characters absent from their world. Mike Flanagan’s stylish, low-key film follows two sisters as one, Tricia (Courtney Bell), finally comes round to declaring her missing husband dead after seven years. Her sister Callie (Katie Parker) starts seeing terrifying visions until Daniel, Tricia’s husband (Morgan Peter Brown), turns up out of the blue. Weird goings-on, erm, go on in an underpass near the sisters’ home as they come to suspect something really quite unnatural (read: supernatural) is taking place.

TV specialist Flanagan’s debut feature deserves to be something of a sleeper hit: on one level, its moody atmospherics, decent performances and affecting score work as a purely textural pleasure. The personal subtext of vanishing into grief and the effect death and loss can have on families is actually the film’s strong point: the best horrors have an emotional core, which Absentia certainly has in spades.

Sticking with those heartfelt stories of family tragedy, personal growth and rejuvenation, we finish off this month’s round-up with that critically acclaimed psychodrama, Return of the Living Dead.

Okay, that’s a lie, but Alien and Dark Star scribe Dan O’Bannon’s semi-classic 1985 zombie jaunt does have the undead scampering around muttering “brains”, if that helps. A monumentally silly film and all the better for it, with a punk soundtrack by the likes of The Cramps and The Damned, Return of the Living Dead remains great fun on re-viewing (and packed with five hours of intriguing extras if you really need them).

O’Bannon’s distinctive visual effects, including the memorable ‘Tarman’ and a suddenly reanimated half-dog corpse stick in the mind, as do the schlocky performances (particularly Don Calfa’s bug-eyed mortician Ernie) and unlikely plot developments. Obviously, we’re not talking Oscar material, but that’s hardly the point really, is it? If death-obsessed female punks inexplicably dancing naked in cemeteries before becoming zombies isn’t your thing, then you’re really in the wrong place.

What’s the best horror movie you’ve seen recently? Let us know below…

> Buy The Woman in Black on DVD on Amazon.

Watch the trailer for The Woman in Black…