Following up his impressive debut, Down Terrace, Ben Wheatley's Yorkshire-based crime thriller swerves with abrupt satisfaction into horror in its final moments. It starts out like a volatile domestic drama, as Jay (Neil Maskell) and wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) scream about money while their son mopes. Soon we meet Jay's fellow hit man Gal (Michael Smiley) and his new girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer) at a tense dinner party. Jay's anger issues and paranoia about his job create a sense of surreality amid all the torture and violence, and we're left wondering if the events portrayed are entirely real. The atmospheric tension, helped along by strong performances, ramps up slowly, leading to a shocking denouement full of visceral, Dionysian imagery. It's as if some monstrous fusion of The Wicker Man, The Blair Witch Project, Eyes Wide Shut, and The Dark Secret of Harvest Home burst forth onto the world . . . and then killed all its parents with a chainsaw made of twigs.
