THINGS THAT GO Zzzzzz IN THE NIGHT

REVIEWED - DARKNESS: GLANCING through the notes I took during this singular Spanish horror fiasco, I found myself temporarily revising my opinion upwards (there was no downwards).

"The larvae are everywhere. I hear them whisper," somebody shrieks. Awful things happen when Iain Glen - the head of an unhappy American family that has recently relocated to some damp part of Spain - hangs a picture of three gaunt, scowling women on the wall. Elsewhere we come across a mad doctor carrying out mysterious experiments.

Darkness itself has malevolent powers and an eclipse is on the way. A deranged architect has built a house whose floor plan is later found in a satanic text. "You remember what happened. You know exactly what this is," Anna Paquin screeches to her mother (Lena Olin) after her father takes a funny turn.

Darkness sounds like the greatest film ever made and it might have turned out to be just that had producer Brian Yuzna - the brains behind such revolting classics as Re-Animator and From Beyond - properly exerted his influence .

Sadly, Jaume Balagueró's picture, which has been festering in the pit of the damned since its European release in 2002, is put together with such dreary incompetence that it could almost be mistaken for a piece of avant-garde video art. The dialogue is barely audible, the actors seem pharmaceutically sedated and, if the incoherence of the story is any guide, the editing was carried out using a cheese grater and Blu-Tac.

Worst of all, neither the giant killer larvae nor any resultant man-eating caterpillars ever make their promised appearance.