This Karachi-set thriller joins the long list of movies that employ the language of horror to explore the oppressive stranglehold of the patriarchy. Unlike, say, Alex Garland’s Men, In Flames raids the box of generic horror tropes but fails to generate any notable scares. Instead, Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Kahn’s feature debut musters a vaguely brooding sense of unease and the suggestion that male eyes and unsavoury appetites are everywhere. Medical student Mariam (Ramesha Nawal) and her mother, Fariha (Bakhtawar Mazhar), find themselves in a precarious position when the family patriarch – Fariha’s father – dies. Debts are mounting and Mariam suspects that the offers of help from a creepy uncle (who might as well carry a sack marked “swag” on it) are probably not to be trusted. Traumatised by a road accident, Mariam is plagued by nightmarish manifestations of the forces that conspire against her.

• In UK and Irish cinemas now