For many the nearest they get to being a member of a club is signing the dotted line for the RAC.

Others dabble with the Rotarians, get along to the Neighbourhood Watch or - at a push - find themselves entering the murky portals of the Masons.

In this, the Grand Master (Udo Kier) has a bit more history than most Mason Lodge stalwarts - he's a demonic sentinel who has stalked the ages since witnessing Christ's crucifixion.

Not for him fixing it so a lodge member's son can land a job at a Toyota dealership - he's got his eyes on the loculus, a sacred relic which holds an awesome secret.

Unfortunately, billionaire Magnus Martel (Terence Stamp) has got there first (he found it in the back of a camper van) and hidden it so Udo is forced to extremes to get his maulers on it.

Just ahead of him is Martel's estranged son Jake (James D'Arcy), a computer decoding expert, and Mira (Natasha Wightman), a student of alchemy.

Jake realises Udo means business when he discovers his charred mum (Celia Imrie) smouldering at her country cottage after coming across the dastardly Grand Master.

So it's a race across Europe, staying one step ahead of Udo as the couple search for clues in France, Malta and finally Greece.

They have to rely on their wits... but Udo has connections in high places to thwart their odyssey. The question is who will find the loculus first... and what secret does it hold?

With pretensions to being The Thinking Man's Raiders of the Lost Ark, this winds up more like the sort of thing the Children's Film Foundation used to churn out.

Drawing in references to sacred geometry, astrology, alchemy, modern cyber skills and cryptography is all very well... but the plot has to convince. And this doesn't.

Which is a shame, because it's the first outing for Romulus Films since they made The Odessa File in 1974.

Tim Evans