Ben Wheatley

Sightseers

Sightseers shares the shock comedy of both of Down Terrace and Kill List. But whereas Kill List was, intendedly so, a chew-your-knuckle ride through the lives of two vicious contract killers, Sightseers is a far more playful and casual in tone. This change in direction can only be compared to when the Coen Brothers inevitably turn out a comedy in the aftermath of a dark and brooding drama: See Burn After Reading/No Country For Old Men. And in that Coen-esque fashion, Wheatley is clearly having a lot of fun in doing the same. As far as the story goes, when

With an extraordinarily rapid output of standout feature films, the third film of Ben Wheatley’s already impressive oeuvre is every bit a melange of twisted off-kilter humour and gory splatter as the first two: Down Terrace and Kill List. If anything, Sightseers is the most easily enjoyable of Wheatley’s films to date. If ‘easy’ is the right word to describe anything about Sightseers. Ostensibly a comedy,

Words ByJack Jones

‘for those looking for a mad comic romp in a caravan,

with the occassional bone-crunching, this is your film’

‘for those looking for a mad comic romp in a caravan,

with the occassional bone-crunching, this is your film’

Chris (Steve Oram) decides to open his girlfriend’s eyes to a world outside of the East Midlands, their caravanning trip becomes a whirl-wind of sexual awakenings and explosive outbursts of extreme violence. Even though Tina (Alice Lowe) lives a sheltered existence with her mother, she is quickly romancedby not only Chris’s wheezing sexualprowess, but also his ability of

suddenly clubbing people to death.And in that wonderfully absurd manner, Sightseers works as one ofthe best comedies of this year, butalso one with a rarefied wit and intelligence of the black comic genre. Like many films related to serial killing or extreme violence, the line between sex and violence is often blurred. Here, Wheatley skilfully plays with this relationship,

probing at Chris’s resentment at the world and Tina’s growing desire for sexual gratification. A film that Sightseers clearly shares its DNA with is David Lynch’s Wild At Heart. Similarly a road movie, Wild At Heart has great swathes of graphic violence, musical interludes and a brooding sexual tension lingering in the background. There isalso a shared unnerving quality

about both these films, in that youcan never possibly know in whichdirection Sightseers is going next. As a project that seems, on theoutside, was far less intense than themuch vaunted Kill List, Sightseers may end up being Wheatley’s mostpopular film to date. And for thoselooking for a mad comic romp in acaravan, with the occasional bone-crunching, this is your film.