Roads feature pretty prominently in former music video director Marcus Adams' own particular cinematic highway to hell.

The trouble is that, after a four-star start, things sputter along on two-stroke and eventually conk out on the hard shoulder with a blown narrative gasket.

Divorcee Senga (Stowe) and her embittered daughter Nat (Barton, as a sort of Kevinetta The Teenager) are driving along a interstate late at night.

Passing an accident, Senga gets the shivers when a man surveying the crash scene calmly takes a picture of her behind the wheel.

She's got even more cause for concern when she clocks ther phantom snapper at a truck-stop - the sort of place where the men look like they know their sisters rather too well.

Mild concern turns to all-out alarm when Nat stomps off in a huff and Senga spots her joining the camera man and a mysterious blonde in a motor caravan.

A frantic report to the police only serves to show that the law isn't necessarily on her side - a patrol-woman is in on the conspiracy.

It's soon clear that a Caravan Club rally this ain't, with flasks of blood and a videotape library of kidnap victims stacked up in their RV home.

Adams, whose debut was the rather hysterical Long Time Dead, has marked his move to America (actually Canada here) with panache.

However, the nerve-tingling start rather loses its grip when the action isn't confined to the highway and a routine, ultimately dull showdown is filmed inside a car design laboratory.

The villainous character of The Father is introduced a little too late to have any pant-wetting effect, and soundtrack suppliers Orbital - aptly named after the M25 - make too much of an unatmospheric row.

Octane may promise a volatile mix but ultimately runs on empty when it should be foot hard down on the floor.

Tim Evans