According to that venerable bible of the cinema-going public - Kerrang! magazine - this boasts more gore than you might have imagined.

Quite a novel selling point, you might suppose, but this seems to be the only option open to director Rosenthal after running out of ideas several films back.

Lee Curtis, in an unmemorable cameo, crops up long enough to be dispatched by her serial killer brother before a completely different plotline swings into action.

Six teens from central casting are persuaded to spend the night in the decrepit Myers family home while being filmed for a web broadcast.

It's a neat trick...but one that was practised far more intelligently and - more important - scarily in Marc Evans' superior My Little Eye.

One by one they're impaled, gouged, skewered, stabbed and kebabbed by mad Myers, who resembles a pumped-up Michael Jackson (and is just about as bonkers).

Some of the devices - corpses tumbling out of wall cavities - appear desperate, while others - Busta Rhymes' gung-ho webmaster - are merely risible.

Rosenthal handles the suspense competently enough but is unable to inject the franchise with any fresh blood, unlike the winningly comedic turn of Jason X.

Comparisons, as they say, are odious...but this couldn't be further away from John Carpenter's electrifying 1978 original, which oozed menace and fear in equal measure.

Myers is now an unstoppable killing machine devoid of any motivation or feeling, and his victims are either college jocks or cheerleading cuties whose first consideration is to take their tops off.

Rather than resurrect the series, perhaps it was better off left buried.

Tim Evans