Ben Wheatley has steadily established himself as a director of considerable craft, boundless diversity and unabashed ambition; seemingly as comfortable helming an occultist horror thriller (“Kill List”) as he is a pitch-black comedy (“Sightseers”). For his fourth full feature, Wheatley turns his hand to 17th-century English Civil War psychedelia with “A Field in England,” a baffling but brave sojourn into the fantastical.
Ben Wheatley wowed and baffled audiences with his thriller horror Kill List, an ethereal, atmospheric and very stylish tale of contract killers caught up with a mysterious cult. It also announced Wheatley as director of real substance and one in possession of a masterful eye. It might come as a surprise then that Wheatley would choose to follow Kill List with a pitch black, very British comedy, a tongue in cheek tale of murderous caravaners bludgeoning their way through the picturesque English countryside. But we should be thankful that he did, because Sightseers is a rare beast, a gorgeous, utterly bonkers and fiercely original breath of fresh air, a film brimming with self-conscious joy that is a pleasure to behold.
crash/burn 