Dark Nature

The making-of featurette begins with director Marc de Launay stating his ambition to cross genre material with arthouse sensibilities while subverting expectations and never patronising the audience. There is also a brief interview with Vanya Eadie (Jane Petrie) on the difficulties of crying and screaming for hours and an even briefer interview with Iain Andrews (Gary) on the difficulties of shooting a heterosexual sex scene when you are gay.

Most, however, of the featurette's 27 minutes is given over to dull, commentary-free behind-the-scenes footage and to a gallery of production stills, as though everything in the electronic press kit had been lumped together under one title.

Much better are the two short films included. The Last Noel (2004, 8 min), directed by de Launay, shows a cynical – if ultimately not too cynical – encounter between a sharp, sceptical boy and a depressive amnesiac who might just be Santa Claus. Contorted Hazel (2006, 24 min), written and produced by de Launay and directed by John Gorman, sees a young boy's nightmares come to life in a spooky old house, and is a textbook exercise in primal fires and haunting atmosphere.