Good, contemporary horror films are scarce. Only a handful of exceptions avoid the bin containing wasted efforts; those horrors that are too often comprised of tired clichés and cheap, ineffective scare tactics, denying them any chance of lingering in the memory and opening the doorway for a slew of pointless sequels of varying crassness. It’s easier to search for old classics from the 70s/80s for worthy genre entries. Ones that come to mind are The Thing, The Omen, The Wicker Man, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, plus others, for their ability to be equally shocking, subversive and entertaining. Perhaps a less viewed horror – yet with a well-known title – is ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1978 remake), a profoundly disturbing tale of alien possession that knows how to scare its audience without trying too hard.

I’d be hard-pressed to deny that Portsmouth is not one of the finest cities out there. Much of it is cluttered, noisy and unappealing, whether for business or living. That’s my limited experience, at least, on the Portsmouth environment. It’s no surprise that I confess I was not part of the Google Maps street view capture mission that began years ago – driving around every road the city has to offer with photography equipment in tow – so any marginalised vestiges of hope hidden away maybe counter my demeaning comments.

Taken is one of the rare films to receive the prestigious 10/10 from me. To put that in perspective, that’s 1% of everything I’ve ever seen. (Yes, it’s sad that I know that.) Given what Taken essentially is when examined, it would seem like an anomaly in my ratings; it doesn’t feature epic carnage like Mad Max, or contain the narrative scope and depth of The Godfather, nor the extraordinarily filmed visual thrills of Gravity. But I’ll explain why it’s one of my favourite films and how it earned that often elusive perfect score.