N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

I must confess to approaching Countrycide with a certain degree of trepidation. I did not remember it — at least, what little I did remember of it — fondly.

But I can see what they were trying for: Torchwood does The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In Wales. And for the most part, as an example of that disreputable horror sub-genre known as hicksploitation, it does succeed.

“You know, I never liked camping.”

Ianto, Countrycide

The location footage is lovely, thus helping establishing the beauty versus brutality dichotomy that’s at the heart of this type of story. The episode opens with the obligatory woman-travelling-alone-at-night-oh-no-she’s-a-victim trope, there’s the creepy village where almost everyone and the local cop is in on it, the team of course gets picked off one-by-one, and at the climax one of the heroines is chased, menaced and terrorised through the trees by the chief maniac. There’s even a creepy abandoned old pub.

In short, it ticks many of the boxes you’d expect and, while perhaps mild in comparison to some films of this ilk, in fairness, I’ve seen enough cheap and nasty horror movies over the years to know this is far from the worst example, although this probably says more about the pitiable quality of horror movies I’ve subjected myself to than the nowhere-present-here-Shakespeare-like level of Countrycide.

Does Countrycide work as a piece of Torchwood? Well, there’s the obligatory silliness — Jack’s coming in all action-hero in slo-mo — and the still-to-me implausible twist of events that is Owen and Gwen. Gwen and Owen! Shacking up? Really?

But six episodes in, we’ve learned enough to know that Torchwood is going to be a wild ride of uneven emotions and quality. So I guess that means I’m sticking with it!