This wild pair of religiose thrillers set out to inform the American public that in their different ways God and Satan have their beady eyes on us down here, but if you play your cards right you might just survive. The apocalyptic Legion begins with an Old Testament epigraph: Psalms 34:11 "Come ye children hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord." And by God they do, after we're taken to the rundown Paradise Falls diner in the Mojave Desert where on 23 December an eight-months-pregnant waitress is about to give birth to a saviour. But horrible things start to happen, and it appears a discontented God wants to call it a day – a day of judgment. St Michael (Paul Bettany), however, is on our side, a good terminator with wings, and he leads the folk at the diner in an Assault on Precinct 13-style standoff against hordes of zombies led by bad terminator St Gabriel. Truly wild stuff, and something of a revelation.

In Case 39, set due north in Portland, Oregon, it's the Devil at work, tricking dedicated social worker Emily (Renee Zellweger) into fostering a 10-year-old girl, whose parents have attempted to murder her. The parents are called Sullivan, which may have made the naive Emily think of the kindly Annie Sullivan who nurtured Helen Keller. She should have noted that the girl's given name is Lilith, the demonic figure of Jewish folklore, child murderer, reputedly first wife to Adam, and evil incarnate. This is the ultimately derivative Bad Seed-Omen-Exorcist story where the malevolent offspring of Beelzebub has implacable supernatural powers.