The Disappeared

A drab, mostly uninhabited high-rise estate in London’s Docklands is the fitting backdrop for this passable British supernatural chiller in which themes of parental apathy and wavering sanity play out over a proficiently directed genre yarn. The film opens on Harry Treadaway’s surly Matt being discharged from hospital. We discover in flashback that he’s been depressed since his younger brother was kidnapped while he and his friends got soused in his father’s flat. While Matt is plagued by visions of the missing sibling, he also strikes up a relationship with his mysterious, pale-faced neighbour, Amy (Ros Leeming), who helps out with his investigation.

Treadaway’s performance is mostly effective but suffers from numerous jarring pitch changes: one minute he’s conversing with pals in a lairy street cockney accent, the next he’s switching to a frenzied posh-boy mumbling that smacks of overacting. Director Johnny Kervorkian sets up the film nicely, but by the end, your worst fears are realised when it climaxes in the most anodyne way possible.