Research student Angela, played by an appropriately fragile Ana Torrent, investigates the effects of video violence on people's minds, aided by the long-haired, twitchy Chema.

She stumbles across a real a copy of a real snuff-movie and, after Angela sees Bosco wielding a video camera in the university canteen, the plot shifts up a gear,with Amenabar squeezing every dramatic drop from his small, efficient cast, one of whom - but which one? - is a psychopath.

The troubling and accomplished, if somewhat overlong Tesis (Thesis), the first-full length feature by 23-year-old Spaniard Alejandro Amenabar, plumbs the murky moral waters of video, voyeurism and violence.

The viewer is treated to a few unpleasantly realistic glimpses of the kind that have made Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer a cult movie amongst young people who prefer The Sight of Massacre to The Sound of Music.

But Tesis is not Henry nor less is it a snuff movie: at its heart, it's a straightforward thriller. But at the end, there is a slap in the face for the public. a comment on reality shows, in which real-life suffering becomes primetime entertainment. "Tarantino uses violence with a smile. TV uses violence in a purely morbid way," says Amenabar. John Hopewell