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After the death of Steve Irwin two weeks ago, comes another tale of an animal lover whose thirst for danger ended in tragedy. "Grizzly Man" (****) follows the story of Timothy Treadwell, an ultimately sad and disturbed individual who was not only obsessed with studying grizzly bears in their natural habitat of Alaska, but also wanted to be one.

Treadwell spent months every year living in the wilderness amongst the bears, capturing footage and presenting his own nature show, the footage of which makes up the bulk of this powerful and compelling documentary. His arrogant belief that he was above the laws of nature eventually led to his death when he and his girlfriend were killed by one of the bears he so loved, the audio footage of which was recorded but is not heard in the film.

It would have been easy to paint the eccentric Treadwell as some delusional fruitcake, but director Wender Herzog has made a well-balanced film which enables the viewer to make up their own minds whether he was actually doing good or harm in his efforts to conserve the animals. The interviews with former colleagues and friends are moving, the actual footage of the bears captured by Treadwell is often breath-taking and there is one scene, involving a very disturbing coroner seemingly taking great pleasure in revealing the gruesome facts, which will stun you in disbelief.

"Hostel" (***) is a disturbing film for altogether different reasons. The second film from Eli Roth divided fans on its cinema release, some hailing it as the perfect antidote to the lame gore-free generic US teen-horror flicks (see House of Wax), while some labelled it as basically an excuse to mix soft-porn with gratuitous violence. I'm sort of in the middle. The first half IS nothing more than low-budget soft-porn and the hedonistic "dumb jock" nature of the three main characters actually make you long for them to die a slow painful death. But when the horror does start, it is occasionally terrifying.

The location itself, Slovakia, is truly unsettling and it's no surprise that the country's officials objected to its portrayal of murderous hookers, thieving street children and torture chambers. There are two particularly gruesome scenes, one involving the removal of toes, the other the removal of an eye, which even the most un-squeamish person will find it hard not to turn away from. And like the recent The Hills Have Eyes, the whole film does make you feel a little dirty having watched it. It may rip-off a thousand other 70s low budget horror films but it's good to see a horror movie which doesn't shy away from sickening audiences.

Finishing a trilogy of completely different but completely unsettling movies is "Right At Your Door" (**), a relentlessly depressing film which makes Requiem For A Dream look like Finding Nemo. Based on a "what would you do?" scenario, this low-budget disaster movie, centres around a married couple caught up in the middle of a chemical bomb attack in Los Angeles.

Definitely the most bizarre disaster movie I've seen in that you don't actually get to see the disaster, save from a few long distance shots of some smoke clouds. Instead the action takes place inside one house, which is sealed off by husband Brad and rather randomly, his next door neighbour's handyman, when news of deadly toxic fumes spreads. Unfortunately wife Lexi was driving to work when it happened and is already nearly foaming at the mouth when she manages to return to her now Fort Knox of a home. Should her loving husband Brad let her in the house and possibly contaminate the two unaffected people? Or should he lock her out of the house to die? That's the question.

What would have made a good hour TV docu-drama is stretched to within breaking point over nearly two hours. Barely anything happens and despite two rather good lead performances, you find yourself not really caring what happens by the end, which ultimately spoils what is a rather good twist and abrupt shocking ending.