What would you do if the world was 12 hours from destruction, and there were no consequences to your actions? What would your friends and neighbours do?

When faced with this reality, self-obsessed James (Phillips) decides the best option is to abandon his pregnant girlfriend, jump in the car and head out to a sex, drug and booze-fuelled party to end all parties. But when he encounters along the way citizens who’ve chosen a more violent option for their final hours he ends up injured and stuck with a young girl (Rice) who needs his help to find her father.

Hilditch, in his debut feature, has created perhaps the bleakest apocalypse tale in many years – Bruce Willis is not heading into space (with nukes) and a group of scientists aren’t headed to the centre of the planet (with nukes) either. We are left in little doubt that the end of the planet is on its way, and no amount of well-placed nukes can stop it. It’s this which gives the film its power – rather than wonder whether these characters will die, we spend the film instead wondering how they will choose to live.

These Final Hours is a gripping, gritty film which firmly marks Hilditch as a director to watch in the coming years.