Writer and director Clive Bradley and Tom Shankland, both National Film School alumni, reportedly spent five years honing the WÄZ script, originally entitled The Devil’s Algebra.

Five years is clearly how long it takes a copy of Seven to wear out, because this derivative, depressing policier lifts ideas and scenes wholesale from that modern classic, bringing little new to the crime desk.

Murky lighting, murder as radical tutoring, shaky handheld chases (thought Cloverfield was bad – check this out!) and scratchy, industrial rock scored credits should have director David Fincher and writer Andrew Kevin Walker speed-dialling their lawyers.

In a particularly hellish NYC precinct (mostly Belfast though), Detective Argo is depressed at the speed with which the world is going to ruin, as is his partner Westcott, just out of the academy, sensibly pony-tailed and horrfied at the WÄZ murders.

Nihilistic gang-banger Pierre (Hardy) is gunning for an enemy boss when members of his crew, including a pregnant woman, turn up mutilated and very dead.

But, Argo and Westcott discover the killings are motivated by a horrific unpunished crime in Argo’s past, involving Jean Lerner (Blair), who is taking revenge after learning the gene theory WÄZ (geddit…?) that posits everyone is motivated by self-interest and will do anything to survive, having brutally been put in the situation herself.

WÄZ (pronounced “was”, as in “I wish I WÄZ watching something else”) is not only far from Seven territory, but also pales beside the first Saw and Hostel installments.

As authentic as an episode of Bones, Bradley’s depressing, humourless script has holes gaping enough to hurl a chainsaw through, and Shankland cannot prevent his debut film degenerating into a grim conveyor belt of torture, gang rape and child-murder – including a misjudged scene with the young boy carved and bruised on the slab.

All this and pro-vigilante politics that would have Michael Winner choking on his cigar.

Skarsgard (star of the original Insomnia) is committed as ever, but his forty-a-day Brando-like mumblings render him barely articulate, while George’s cut-price Clarice Starling, all moist-eyes, clenched jaw and gun-fumbling, is good only for unintentional giggles.

Room is even made for Paul Kaye, giving a twitchy performance as Dr Exposition, on hand to explain the gene theory and basically tell the cops who the killer is.

Only Selma Blair, working wonders with her underwritten psycho, emerges with dignity intact but should slap her agent’s legs for handing her this.

Recommended for audiences who thought Kevin Bacon’s Death Sentence was too restrained; everyone else steer clear.

Rob Daniel