After the horrors Joe Absolom witnessed in Albert Square, a vengeful evil spirit summoned from the dead must have appeared a mere trifle.

There's the murder (usually underneath the arches) every other week, the constant sight of Phil Mitchell and the risk of Fat Pat and Mike Reid indulging in an illicit snog.

So a vicious African spirit tearing around your home with murder on his mind is likely to come as a relief if not some sort of salvation.

Absolom plays Rob, a member of a gang of students who do what students do - take drugs, drink funny lager and get laid (there's nary a sign of an academic book).

Then - as students are wont to do - they decide to fool around with a oija board and - surprise, surprise - they summon something they should have left well alone.

First victim is Annie (Melanie Gutteridge) and then the casualty list piles up quicker than you can say "bad A-level results".

The group return to their creepy home and discover landlord Brecker (Tom Bell) has a bit of a thing for devil worship and the occult.

More startlingly, they find a dossier on how Liam's father (Alec Newman) was involved in a bloody mass murder in Morocco during the Seventies - something he claimed was the work of a demon.

As the body count rises, the finger of suspicion points at Liam but a visit to see his dad at a high-security psychiatric hospital throws up even more confusion.

This may have more than its fair share of cliches but it's a workmanlike effort and there are enough genuinely heart-stopping moments to keep things ticking over.

The question of quite why individual members of the group keep going their own way (particularly back to a spooky houseboat) will only be of interest to the person who fashioned the plot.

Suffice to say, it's a run-of-the mill chiller, peopled by an attractive cast. If you have to choose between this and the appalling Soul Survivors, go for this.

Tim Evans