You know what you’re going to get with Asylum. Their business model is simple: produce the kind of B-movie fun that kept Amicus, Hammer, Roger Corman and others going.

They look at what’s popular and do a version of it that is cheaper, funnier and made for the depths of the cable TV guide.

‘Sherlock Holmes’, now on rotation on Syfy UK , is such a film.

Released a month after the Guy Ritchie ‘Sherlock Holmes’, the most recognisable face for a UK audience is Gareth David-Lloyd (‘Torchwood’) as Watson and it’s unlikely anyone confused him for Jude Law.

The plot follows the typical Asylum narrative of taking an idea and throwing every monster you can think of at it. It opens with sailors aboard a ship, attacked by some rather familiar tentacles, if you’ve seen the classic ‘Mega Shark v Giant Octopus’. If you’ve got a good CGI model, reuse it.

There’s an early suggestion it’ll be a Cthulhu story (unless I misheard it, the ship was lost off a place called New Haven) until something from a whole different Arthur Conan-Doyle canon pops up in Whitechapel. There’s also a black-clad, cold-skinned woman who mesmerises Watson. Oh, and Spring-Heeled Jack played with gusto by Dominic Keating (‘Heroes’, ‘Enterprise’ and ‘Desmonds’).

You might be thinking this is all a long way from Conan-Doyle’s books but it’s surprisingly classical. In Conan-Doyle’s Holmes canon, some cases start with a supernatural element but these are always rationalised. In fact, despite the classic Asylum elements, the film has a rational resolution.

It’s non-canonical, of course, but no more so than ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon’ (or ‘Sherlock versus the Nazis’ as I call it) or ‘Young Sherlock Holmes’. It’s also good to see a Holmes film that isn’t just a remake of ‘Hound of the Baskervilles‘ or ‘The Sign of Four’.

In a surprise move, the film was actually shot in the UK (albeit in North Wales rather than one of the big London studios), lending it more authenticity than expected. Although you do wonder quite how a ‘morning constitutional’ from Baker Street can end up in a forest – Regent’s Park isn’t that wild.

And the less said about the bizarre stone gates to Buckingham Palace the better. But the sepia colour-grading used (doubtless in part to hide changes in weather conditions) works well.

The choice of newcomer Ben Snyder as Holmes is a curious one. Not the fact he plays it with a faint Northern accent – Holmes spends at least a couple of his teenage years in Yorkshire in the canon so it’s vaguely plausible – but the fact he is shorter than Watson (if not thinner).

Breaking away from the normal physical templates is not unique (my favourite Watson is Ian Hart in ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ and ‘The Case of the Silk Stocking‘) but Snyder just doesn’t carry enough authority to be Holmes. Watson is the man of action, but Holmes should draw the eye as the real protagonist.

This film might annoy Holmes purists. The finale reminded me of ‘Doctor Who’ episode ‘ The Next Doctor’, with its steampunk elements and battle over London. But then that in itself seemed like a homage to the end of the comic ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, which was in turn a homage to Conan Doyle…

In short, if you want a silly, slightly gory, utterly outrageous mockbuster, this fits the bill.