Director: Ross Boyask

Cast: Brendan Carr, Terry Stone, Doug Bradley

Synopsis: Ten men took away his life. Now ten men will pay with their’s. Ryan is left for dead, but returns to his old ways for one last revenge trip. And it’s going to be bloody!

The first thing you notice about Ten Dead Men is that it’s made with virtually no budget (estimated at £100,000 on IMDb – which is about the price of a one-bed starter home) but there’s nothing wrong with that – I’m all for independent film makers going it on their own with limited resources, and I’ve seen some half-decent films as a result. So kudos to the director and producer for having the energy and enthusiasm most of us lack.

Sadly, there’s not a huge amount of good things that can be said about Ten Dead Men by anyone who has broad experience of movie watching. The subject matter is fairly uninspired, and its relentless violence seems to have been targeted towards the kind of Neanderthals who like to do a little filming of their own – usually on their mobile when they’re engaging in a spot of happy-slapping. The acting is dire – but I don’t really expect awards-standard performances from a no-budget flick, so I wasn’t too bothered by that. The direction and editing are OK, and the makers clearly know where their major weaknesses are, which is why dialogue is kept to a minimum (to the point of ridiculousness in the case of the leading man: either they thought his vocal skills were beyond saving or they were trying to create a mysterious man-with-no-name type because despite having 90per cent screen time he only speaks one line) and the action scenes are delivered in two-minute intervals.

The one area in which low budget films are not at such a disadvantage as other films is in the writing. Imagination costs nothing, and if you’ve got the ear for it, natural-sounding dialogue will flow naturally, but the storyline here seems to be something of an afterthought – just something to fill the empty seconds between gunfights and torture.