Colin Firth swaps the cosy world of the rom-com and D'Arcy's dripping blouson to play a road accident victim emerging from a coma to find his wife's dead.

Consumed by grief, Ben (Firth) divides his time between his mysterious shrink, his old pal Tommy and a bachelor pad in a creepy converted Victorian hospital.

At the same time there is a Diana-style outpouring of national hysteria following the murder of pop star Lauren Parris, who is found floating face down in a canal.

Coincidentally, Ben's wife was a backing singer for the late warbler... and Ben is questioned by Kenneth Cranham's grizzled cop about her killing.

On the bright(er) side, Ben's new landlady takes the unlikely form of cheerleading clone Charlotte (Suvari), an arachnophobe who gives head massages to local pensioners.

Ben, we learn, also isn't your regular kind of guy - he scrawls charcoal portraits of his wife on his duplex wall and keeps a colony of ants in a fish tank.

Director Marc Evans, who so impressed with that country house murder mystery for the internet age, My Little Eye, has come badly unstuck here.

Where his debut's smothering claustrophobia and spine-shredding tension kept you on your toes, this is a flat-footed exercise, both overblown and underwhelming.

To convince a cinema audience the bizarre things they are witnessing are really happening, the narrative must - at least - have a passing acquaintance with reality.

This is totally adrift on a sea of over-contrived imagery - ants crawling everywhere, a hospital morgue full of shoes - and supernatural clichés - Brenda Fricker's medium anyone?

Too many implausibilities and coincidences don't help suspension of disbelief, while Firth doesn't look totally comfortable in the unlikeable guise of Ben's stubbled delusionist.

The greatest trauma you'll suffer is the realisation you've handed over hard-earned cash to watch this nonsense.

Tim Evans