A genuinely disturbing, if slightly hokey psychological horror from the new iFeatures digital filmmaking scheme, In The Dark Half beats the odds predicted by its micro-budget to produce a sensitive and finely detailed exploration of a particularly toxic grief, the claustrophobia of small-town life and the sheer scope of the power of denial.

Mike Leigh’s gentle send-up of neighbourly relations is as enjoyable now as it was in the Seventies.

We love watching films on the BBC. They’re almost always well-chosen and intelligent, they stay on iPlayer for ages, and there are no commercial breaks. Bliss. With this in mind, you can well imagine our excitement when BBC Films scheduled a weekend triple bill of recent British features to celebrate its official move to BBC 2 – free cinema in the comfort of our own squalid bedsits? Yes please! Here are our thoughts on three cracking new films: The Damned United, Eastern Promises and Is Anybody There?