If a little boy falls in the woods, does he make a sound? If he's eight-year-old Mathias (Nelson Maerten), then his death reverberates for decades, culminating in a deadly vendetta and the trauma of Lucas (Louka Meliava), whose best friend is killed before his eyes. Lucas and his family may be keen to move on but, unfortunately for them all, Mathias's dad is a lumberjack, and he does care.

Years later, Lucas returns to his family home in rural France after the death of his own family in a fire. Accompanied by his wife (Léna Laprès) and annoying adult best friend (Côme Levin), Lucas comes face-to-face with Mathias's still-grieving dad, who insists that they stop by for a coffee and a catch-up. One busted car later and the threesome are stranded in the wilderness with only an increasingly unhinged old coot for company. What does Le bûcheron (Gilles David, channelling John Kramer by way of Wolf Creek's Mick Taylor) have planned - and what is a schlitte anyway?

When it's at home, schlitte translates as 'slider,' an unassuming name for something that turns out to be one of the film's best toys. At a taut seventy minutes, Schlitter is a tightly-honed revenge thriller that puts its eccentricities front and centre. If its brief runtime is refreshing, it also leaves some plot turns feeling rushed and under-developed, and doesn't allow the film time to luxuriate in its gorgeous, lushly-shot forest setting.

While its setup is familiar and its path unsurprising, its more loopy developments can't be predicted, putting Le bûcheron's tool shed to good use.

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