D/S: Joe Cornish. P: Nira Park, James Wilson. Cast: Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Nick Frost, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway. UK dist (Blu-ray/DVD): Optimum Home Entertainment.

Snappily directed by Joe Cornish (of quirky TV double-act Adam and Joe), Attack the Block succeeds in blending the claustrophobic tension of Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 with the witty genre commentary of Shaun of the Dead, without seeming overly derivative of either (no mean feat). The plot is simplicity itself: inner-city London yobs must defend their turf against hordes of ravening alien beasts, which plummet to earth in what appear to be meteorites. Emboldened by their first successful skirmish with a weedy-but-toothy critter (which winds up paraded through the streets on a pole), they return home to tool up for more action but quickly discover the next wave of invaders are quite a different kettle of fish: eyeless, jet-black, spiky-furred monsters the size of gorillas, with fluorescent fangs and a top speed of around 60 mph. The youthful gang members must employ all their survival instincts to evade not just the skull-chomping horrors, but also a psychotic drug lord who blames the kids for the destruction of his prize motor.

Forget the story: Attack the Block is all about character, dialogue and fuel-injected excitement. Full marks to Cornish for originality in selecting as his band of protags those beloved hate-figures of the Daily Mail readership, the hooded teenage yob; indeed, their very first appearance on-screen seems deliberately engineered to trigger reactionary assumptions as they’re introduced casually mugging our nice white heroine (Jodie Whittaker), albeit without resorting to physical violence. But the threat is certainly there, personified by the gang’s tough and taciturn young leader Moses (John Boyega, coming across like a black Lee Marvin). It is again to the film’s credit that it gradually succeeds in humanising these normally faceless hooligans, without resorting to overbearing liberal hand-wringing; family backgrounds are sketched, in passing, in just enough detail for an intelligent viewer to draw his own conclusions. (In truth, the film is just too fast-paced to allow anything more, thankfully.) Through a combination of lively characterisation and flat-out hilarious cod-Jamaican slang, his young cast all givin it dat wiv da Rude Boy patois shizzle innit, Cornish paints his gang members as vibrant, funny and hugely endearing. (Though these Droogies’ argot ain’t exactly Burgess-level, it has its own charm: an item of great monetary value is said to be worth “bear pee”, and it’s difficult to remain unimpressed by the minimalist force of Boyega’s stone-faced expression of admiration: “Allow it.”) Attack the Block passes the basic litmus test of any good horror movie: you really don’t want the heroes to die.

Full marks, too, for ingenious use of special effects. Though the gorilla-sized monsters seem entirely CG, that’s not the case; it’s all achieved through economic use of stunt men in woolly jumpers, basically, digitally enhanced in post-production to give their fur the other-worldly appearance of light-sucking exotic matter, blacker than any black you’ve ever seen. It’s hugely effective. As the things swarm up the side of a tower block, or explode through the front door of an apartment like it was paper, you’re never less than one hundred per cent convinced of the desperate reality of the situation. With Shaun’s Edgar Wright exec-producing, and a welcome cameo from Shaun alumnus Nick Frost as (wait for it) a drug-addled waster, the film boasts a similar air of effortless charm; sprinkled throughout with comical little character details, like the awfully middle-class young druggie whose street-lingo pose convinces nobody, this is a film that’s practically impossible to dislike.

Allow it.