Following his comedy crime caper, Down Terrace (2009), and the occult oddity, Kill List (2011), director Ben Wheatley continues to trudge through the weird and wonderful dark side of Britain, this time choosing the Lake District as the setting for his very own Badlands.
The film follows Chris and Tina (Steve Oram and Alice Lowe both names to remember), who, despite barely knowing each other, embark on a passion-fuelled road trip together through Derbyshire, Yorkshire and beyond. With pencil museums on the itinerary and plenty of Tina’s pasta sauce in supply, the two new lovers travel in their modest caravan and take in the wonderful sights of northern England, escaping Tina’s manipulative mother and combatting Chris’ writer’s block in the process.
When a bloody accident sees a fellow pencil-enthusiast crushed under the wheel of Chris’ caravan, Chris’ penchant for murder bubbles to the surface, and it’s not long before Tina is pulled into Chris’ mad, bad world.
Like a deranged and unpredictable Shane Meadows, Wheatley once again delivers a unique interpretation of his home country that’s quintessentially British, albeit in an off-kilter way. This time Wheatley uses the beautiful countryside of Cumbria to paint a bleak and eerie picture of a no man’s land where danger permeates throughout the ancient woodlands. Of course, Sightseers is very funny too: absurd, deadpan and fiercely violent in equal measure.
Oram and Lowe are both brilliant as the unassuming fugitives, coming across like a loveable, cagoule-wearing Micky and Mallory Knox, boasting charm, naivety and menace and carrying more than a fistful of superb one-liners.
With a great soundtrack and a finale that’ll leave you guffawing like a Daily Mail devotee reading an asylum seeker joke, Sightseers is a short, sweet blast of British black comedy at its best.
Overall Verdict: These Brummie born killers will make you laugh one minute and recoil in horror the next. Bizarre and bloody hilarious.
Reviewer: Lee Griffiths