Palmer’s script is taut and clever and he elicits some wonderful performances from his actors, from menacing thug Brian McClay (Ian Pirie), to the simpering wreck of Vaughn.
It’s the kind of confident work you’d expect from a film-maker with much more experience and its raw power brings to mind some of Ben Wheatley’s best stuff. The deft handling of these well-worn genre tropes is down to the skill of Matt Palmer, the writer and director of this fantastic debut feature. Just when you think you know where it’s heading, it veers thrillingly off track. It’s a measure of the film’s quality that this fairly unoriginal premise is still packed full of surprises, misdirections and twists. And as the lads panic and make increasingly bad decisions to cover their tracks, it only gets worse. Watching it is excruciating, like being stuck on a broken-down Tube train with stomach cramps. It’s a sickening moment that from then on infuses every second of the film’s remaining runtime with a dramatic tension that turns your palms into reservoirs. They succeed but suffice to say that if you tried to mount the head of their prey above the fireplace, you’d get some awfully funny looks from the neighbours. The lads wake up the next morning with a hangover and head off into the woods to kill something. The sort of guy you’d run a mile from if you had any sense but you don’t because he’s your friend.
Marcus is the kind of character who finds trouble just by existing. Unfortunately for the mild-mannered Vaughn it’s clear that Marcus is the one in charge, which is a bit like appointing a lit stick of dynamite as the babysitter. The warning to “keep an eye on your friend” from local bigwig Logan has a ring of ominous foreshadowing about it. Trouble starts the moment they arrive after Marcus buys a drink for a local girl and almost comes to head-butts with a jealous onlooking man.
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