Rupert Thomson’s difficult 2000 novel was in production Hell almost immediately after its publication. Uncompromising and skipping the usual kidnap clichés it was the trickiest book to adapt for the big screen since Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho.

While director Ana Kokkinos may not have matched Mary Harron's memorable stab at American Psycho, this is still a good treatment of difficult source material, retaining the excesses and audience-unfriendly ambiguity.

Daniel (a suitably haunted looking Long), an emotionally distant, slightly narcissistic dancer, leaves his studio one bright Melbourne day to get cigarettes for his girlfriend Brigitte (Torv, also playing one of the kidnappers, but not the same character).

When he does not return, both Brigitte and Daniel’s choreographer and confidant Isabel (Scacchi, given her best role in years) attempt to find him, Isabel going to policeman ex-husband (Friels) for help.

Twelve days later Daniel re-appears, traumatised and tight-lipped. Flashbacks reveal his ordeal at the hands of the three women, garbed in hooded cloaks and fetish sex masks, and fuelled by these memories he obsessively beds a series of women hunting the tattoos and birthmarks he spotted on his captors.

Coolly keeping its distance, The Book of Revelation is likely to offend, but skips over potential exploitation pitfalls.

Kokkinos and co-writer Andrew Bovell patiently escalate tension through an uneventful first act, and build a nice head of paranoia and shame once Daniel is dumped back into his life.

A threatening string score and sweaty, claustrophobic camerawork turn The Book of Revelation into a companion piece to Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and the sexual warring here is far more vicious.

Tipping the rape-revenge thriller on its head, the film scores good points about the difficulty of Daniel’s predicament (on paper it’s most men’s dream to be three women’s sex toy) and the nature of sexual power (the women’s treatment of Daniel almost turns him into one of them by the climax), wisely keeping the lead character at arm’s length.

Changes to the book – giving Daniel a name, relocating from Amsterdam to Melbourne - don’t affect the story, but the movie is hamstrung by being free to show explicit female nudity, but having to play it safe when it comes to male appendages (although still revealing more than most).

Biting the bullet and being equally frank whatever the naughty bits would have made this a real groundbreaker, but The Book of Revelation is interesting enough to hope Kokkinos follows it with something equally daring.

Rob Daniel