Black n’ Red A7 notepad, £1.59, Cowling & Wilcox, Broadwick Street

<<<< I’ve seen 5 of this week’s movie releases. That’s got to be a record.

I have just checked my old e-mails and I saw this film on the 24th February so forgive me if I’m a little hazy on the details.

The Uninvited is a horror film about a scary stepmother. The stepmother is played by Elizabeth Banks, presumably because she got on board before becoming famous enough to turn down shit horror movies. It’s so bad that I’m having to revive the classic Venn Diagram Review just to attempt to classify it.

THE UNINVITED: VENN DIAGRAM REVIEW

This idea has officially been exhausted.

A week and a half ago I had never heard of Riki Lindhome. Since then, I have seen her portray a religious English teacher, a nerdy student and a psychopathic serial killer.

She was pretty good in all cases.

Well done.

Why is it only ever British films that have landscape-orientated posters?

Shifty is the directorial debut of British director Eran Creevy and as you can see it’s got actor/rapper Riz Ahmed (who did Post 9/11 Blues), Daniel Mays (Nettle from Atonement) and Jason ‘Primeval’ Flemyng in it.

It was made for £100,000, shot in 18 days and funded by the usual range of benefactors (UK Film Council, BBC Films, National Lottery, Film London, Microwave etc.)

And it’s not very good.

How ‘not very good’ you ask?

Let’s just say it’s still only my second favourite Shifty…

Don’t get me wrong, the acting, writing and direction are all perfectly competent, and the film looks pretty good too considering the budget. But it’s just so incredibly dull, predictable and unexciting. Shame really.

Still, at least we’ve still got…