The British-Iranian director of Under The Shadow and I Came By, Babak Anvari, certainly likes to unsettle us, and he does so here whilst exploring parental responsibility and powerlessness. Elevated by the presence of leads Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys, the stripped-back horror Hallow Road sees a young woman make a frantic call to her paramedic mum after hitting someone with her car.

As it follows in the footsteps of phone-based films like The Call, Locke, Phone Booth and, best of all, the 2018 Danish version of The Guilty, Hallow Road engages our imagination by focusing on the recipient of the call (Pike) and her husband (Rhys), with their frightened 18-year-old daughter Alice (Megan McDonnell) remaining offscreen.

With the action mainly limited to the confines of a car as Alice’s parents rush to her aid, Hallow Road makes the most out of the pair’s contrasting reactions (her mum is driven by her morals and medical professionalism, whereas dad is much more anxious and emotional). It also does well on drip-feeding the backstory: we learn the circumstances of Alice’s abrupt departure from the family home and the real reason she ended up deep in the woods.

The film’s use of sound, and indeed silence, is suitably chilling (there are some truly unpleasant cracks and wails, and an anomalously cheery voicemail is well employed), while the satnav’s countdown to the parents’ arrival is also nicely utilised. Unfortunately, screenwriter William Gillies’ attempts to summarise what’s at play can feel clunky and theatrical and there’s a slight sense of anticlimax at the end. Nevertheless, Pike and Rhys are brilliant as the panicking parents and Anvari takes us on a nail-biting journey through their pain.

Hallow Road is in cinemas from Friday 16 May.