Occasionally, just occasionally, when trawling through the mountain of straight-to-DVD fodder that populates the modern-day rental stores, you stumble across something that jolts you out of your stride and really piques your interest.

Resurrecting the Street Walker is one of those films.

An ultra-low budget British offering, the movie takes the form of a 'mockumentary', but rather than just concentrate on the jittery camera stuff that is so popular in modern cinema, this takes things a bit further with straight-to-camera interviews, news clips and the like.

The premise is fairly straightforward – budding film-maker James Parker (James Powell) is so desperate to get into the movie business that he willingly takes on the menial role of office dogsbody at a no-hope London production company.

While clearing out one of their many cluttered rooms, Parker stumbles across film reels for a movie titled The Street Walker, an early 80s slasher film that was never finished or released.

Delving into the mystery, Parker learns that the director of the movie subseqeuntly committed suicide and that the film may, or may not, have actually carried out a real-life on-screen murder.

What follows is a terrific depiction of one man's descent into near madness, as Parker becomes ever-more desperate to find out the truth of what really happened.

I was completely taken by surprise by this – while settling on to the sofa to watch the DVD screener I fully expected some run-of-the-mill offering, but this is far from that.

Powell is stunning in the central role, and the supporting cast also shine to the extent that you really buy into the fact that this is all for real.

Director Ozgur Yuganik does a great job of building the tension, and I admit that as the thing got going I became more and more drawn in to the story.

In all honesty, it does lose its way a bit as it reaches the conclusion, with things becoming a bit too over-the-top for my liking, but what takes place before that more than makes up for it.

Resurrecting the Street Walker will certainly not be to everyone's tastes, but it comes highly recommended.

Released on DVD on June 28