Taken at face value Horsemen should be a mess, as the elements seem hackneyed and cobbled together using liberal helpings of any horror flick from the last decade that turned a profit. Firstly, taking it's lead from David Fincher's hugely influential Se7en, the film centres around a series of quasi-religious murders, in this case emblematic of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – War, Pestilence, Famine and Death – as mentioned in the Book of Revelations. Add to this a liberal helping of grisly torture, as championed by the Hostel and Saw films. Season with a creepy Asian female and sprinkle with post-millennial parental guilt and some unsettling paedophobia for good measure. This heady concoction of sources and previously successful concepts jostle for the attention of a classic horror movie protagonist – not the scantily clad young female in this instance – but rather the burnt out, grieving cop, with one foot in the grave and nothing to live for but the job. There are so many opportunities for the film to drop the ball and fall foul of one too many clichés that it comes as a genuine surprise when it reaches its climax and, even though the killer becomes obvious, the film still manages to hold together.

Detective Aidan Breslin (Dennis Quaid) trudges through life in the perpetually wintry 14th Precinct of Detroit almost praying for somebody to swoop down and put an end to his miserable existence. He recently lost his wife to cancer and is quickly coming to the conclusion that his two sons, teenage Alex (Lou Taylor Pucci) and 7 year-old Sean, are strangers to him, thanks to his life-sucking career. When two murder scenes are uncovered, both with the victims suspended from custom-made suspension frames on oversized fish hooks with the slogan "Come And See" emblazoned around them, Breslin soon discovers that he is being lectured to by a killer, or killers, with a larger, possibly Apocalyptic, agenda.

Zhang Ziyi makes a memorable appearance as Kristen, the adopted daughter of one of the victims. At first appearing fragile and shell-shocked by her stepmother's grisly demise, Kristen reveals that she was not only complicit in her death, but may have masterminded the whole tortuous ordeal herself. Zhang does a commendable job, eagerly embracing the opportunity to play such an extroverted, evil character. While her English has clearly improved dramatically since last she appeared in an American film, she does occasionally feel like she is working hard to annunciate, but it never detracts from her genuinely creepy performance. One can't help but feel the leap to down-at-heel has-been is not a big one for Dennis Quaid. He seems totally at ease looking dishevelled, traumatised and completely oblivious to just how deep the shit is piling up around him, but the audience will get behind him right from the start.

The film sustains a grimy and creepy tone throughout and features a couple of genuinely toe-curling moments. The story takes some interesting turns and plays well on the audience's preconceptions. There is some very clever casting in the supporting roles, which is a pleasant surprise in this particular genre, where stock characters and recurring bit players are very much the norm. Ultimately, Horsemen is not a terrifying experience, but rather an understated, quietly confident genre flick, only too aware of its origins and influences, but also of its audience, whom it never takes for granted. For that at the very least we must be grateful. James Marsh