This fiercely imaginative ‘urban fairy tale’ from multitalented London fabulist Philip Ridley juxtaposes East End settings, fairy tales, disturbing violence and bleak, surreal humour. Jamie (Sturgess), a melancholy 25-year-old photographer with a heart-shaped birthmark on his face, starts to believe that the masked ‘hoodies’ prowling the streets are actual demons. His shy, tentative love for the fragile Tia (Clémence Poésy) offers a ray of hope, but his Faustian pact with the Papa B – the self-styled ‘patron saint of random violence’ – plunges Jamie into a frightening world of chaos.

By showing us these bizarre events from Jamie’s point of view, Ridley forces us to share his hallucinatory vision of an apocalyptic world. Ridley’s coup de grace is a quiet, emotionally charged ending as surprising as it is bold.