YORK film company MilesTone Productions makes big strides with CrimeFighters, the third project from writer-director Miles Watts.

After his suck-it-and-see debut with the no-budget The BandWagons in 2007, and the hand-held camera fun and games of the Zomblogalypse web series, he makes £6,000 go a long way in a love letter to York, comic-book movies and graphic novels, with the aid of co-writer Anna Cathenka, digital cinematographer Paul Richardson, film editor Tony Hipwell and menacing soundtrack composers Sam Forrest and Hayley Hutchinson.

The pub-and-pop culture spirit of Shaun Of The Dead and Shane Meadows pervades CrimeFighters, a none-too-serious tale of bike-riding, karate-kicking vigilantism, street chases and pub brawls in York.

Given the city’s history and profusion of snickleways and shadows, York’s streets and buildings cry out for spooky film-making, no less than Venice or London’s East End or Edinburgh, and one of the joys of CrimeFighters is the locations, from Ye Olde Starre Inne to the Minster, Newgate Market to Purple Haze.

In film-noir black and white, York looks better still, the film’s design being complemented by the garb of the CrimeFighters (a rollerblading, deadpan Emma Keaveney, love-struck Aussie Paul Trimmer and knitting-fiend costume designer Debbie Hard) as these three bored friends-turned superheroes tackle the city’s crimewave.

Watts has called CrimeFighters a cross between The Incredibles and Kevin Smith’s stoner classic Clerks, a good call for a scabrous, enjoyably English film full of off-the-cuff cool. Who needs Kick-Ass?

•Sunday’s sold-out world premiere will be followed by a 6pm show on Tuesday (box office 0871 704 2054).