Sightseers
Starring: Alice Lowe, Steve Oram
Director: Ben Wheatley
Director Ben Wheatley is certainly hitting his stride after the darkly funny yet brutally violent hit man meets cult thriller “Kill List”. Wheatley continues the tradition of refusing to make a traditional genre film, this time mixing a road trip into his unique brand of dark comedy and horror elements in sightseers.
Chris just wants to take his girlfriend Tina on a nice holiday, take in the sights of the English countryside, stop and relax in his caravan, all against the wishes of Tina’s domineering mother. Everything that can go wrong tends to, from rude tourists, to unavailable campsite parking, to issues with errant dog poop. The longer the trip continues the more things go wrong and in typical Wheatley fashion the body count piles up.
What really sells sightseers is the plain and udder ordinariness of Chris and Tina, they lack the typical charisma or gravitas of a murderer, they are so dull they are the epitome of an “Average Couple”. Yet this is exactly why you are able to vicariously live through them, It’s a treat to see them enact one revenge fantasy after another against every malcontent they come across, who has slighted them. What sets Wheatley apart is his ability to deftly angle between genres in the same scene. From an argument to an absurd death to a graphic look at the corpse. While Wheatley’s style is unconventional it keeps you on your toes waiting for this modern day Bonnie and Clyde to come in contact with their next victim.
With an ending that is quite unexpected , Wheatley is honing his craft right before our eyes. Each subsequent project he works on is better than its predecessor.
GRADE- 88
