A thrilling and bloody good entertaining twist on the home invasion horror sub-genre, The Owners especially works thanks to the devilishly good performances from Sylvester McCoy and Rita Tushingham, as well as the on-your-toes direction from Julius Berg.

The Owners opens on a trio of scumbags. Tracksuit wearing “lad” types straight from central casting, they spit out poorly worded rap lyrics that penetrates the cloud of cigarette smoke like a fart caught in a fog of moronism. Deluded, desperate, and dangerous, they stake out a crusty old manor-house that is rumoured to have a stash of cash in a safe. Joined by the girlfriend of one of the gang, the kind-hearted yet over her head Mary (Maisie Williams), they make their move. Who would think that by the films end, these four louts would be nothing compared to the horrors that await inside?

Enter Richard and Ellen Huggins, an elderly couple as unsuspecting as they are dangerous. Played superbly well by Sylvester McCoy and Rita Tushingham, this pair of supposedly fragile geriatrics prove to be the next great horror stars to scare the screen, so cunning and sinister and violent their brand of evil, made even scarier by the polite and vulnerable façade they use to trick their victims.

Both McCoy and Tushingham are excellent in their roles, McCoy straddling that line between Robbie Corbet and Ed Gein, while Tushingham is sure to give you nightmare fuel as the two-beers-shy-of-a-six-pack granny with a thirst of bloodshed. Hopefully, The Owners does good business on the VOD scene so that we can see more of these boomer savages racking havoc.

Although set and filmed in Britain, The Owners is based on the Belgium graphic novel by Hermann and Yves H, and is directed by French filmmaker Julius Berg, who co-scripted with Geoff Cox and Mathieu Gompel. With a runtime of 92 minutes, the film proves itself to be incredibly creepy and intense, bereft of any jump scare nonsense, as the sinister motives of the title character reveal themselves in bloody spectacular ways. A great score keeps proceedings heavy and tense. The manor within which the film is set is superbly crafted by production designer Bobbie Cousins (Muscle). Maise Williams is great as the final-girl of much spunk and fight, while Jake Curran suitably chews up the screen as an unpredictable and violent criminal with bad intensions.

Scenes of shocking violence throughout The Owners will turn off some, yet for those with the stomach and nerves of steel, The Owners is a frightening good horror thriller that engrosses with every twist and turn, not to mention the deadly one-two punch of McCoy and Tushingham.