Doctor Who: Static

A young couple take a break in an isolated caravan park deep in the woods... and when has that starting premise ever turned out well for the characters in a movie?

The result isn't a slasher flick, but it is a creepy horror tale about something scary out in the mist. It certainly piles on the cliches (indeed, some might find it overdoes this) with the sinister old caretaker, phones ringing when they should be cut off, and the couple trying to recover from a recent tragedy that plays back into the story. But it does this well, aided by some good characterisation of the guest stars as well as playing into Constance's backstory once it turns out that something odd was going on here during the War.

In fact, the cliches are part of the point, because this is still a Doctor Who story, allowing for a different take on a classic concept in the same way that - to pick just one example - Time Heist is a take on, well... heist movies. And, of course, people being cut off from the outside world and then facing something scary is a good fit for much of the TV series.

The horror elements also give way to something that's more obviously science fiction in the second half as some of the details of what's going on become clearer. Even then, though, the pace keeps up as the viewpoint switches between the 1940s and the “present day” (more precisely, the 1980s). For all the tropes being honoured in the first half, this is, as it turns out, a story you couldn't tell without time travel.

The final resolution is one that's pretty typical for the series but that's entirely forgivable given the strong tale that leads up to it. It's a pity that there was such a long break after this without Flip and Constance as companions - they honestly work far better than any of the pairings Six had on TV.