Ace concept, really. The Evil Dead… for kids! OK, so there’s no rapist trees or pencil-in-the-ankle distress. But there are some surprising similarities – this is another tale of the wrong book being opened by mistake, unleashing demon hell in and around a house in the sticks. Maybe director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Freaky Friday) doesn’t cut the same camera-dash as Sam Raimi, but what excites in this five-novels-into-one adaptation is that it (mostly) doesn’t feel like overlong filmed literature, à la The Golden Compass or the weaker Potters.

After 30 minutes of set-up, it’s headlong into the goblin fighting – tense, terse and caked in monsterly fluids. The flavoursome FX shimmer with a sense of grandeur (the swooping griffin ride) and the grotesque (those green-blooded beasties). The child acting also trumps anything from Narnia or Hogwarts, with Freddie Highmore doubling-up as angry/bookish twins alongside bossy big sis Sarah Bolger (In America).

All good, then? Well… emotionally Spiderwick is as modest as the pared-down scale, the hurt of a newly broken, single parent family getting muffled in the melee. And if we are going full pelt for creature carnage, why bog down in a long-lost dad/daughter sideplot that dilutes the goblin-goo with sap? It’s a twee touch that might nark off older teens, as is an “It’s all real, boys and girls!” DVD intro-piece from Waters. Mind you, source writers Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black were inspired by three tykes who believed in faeries – about the only nugget you’ll glean from a skinny disc that’s half the size of the US release. Must be gremlins in the works...

DVD Extras: Director's introduction
Making Of
Interactive field guide