Period horror starring Reece Shearsmith and Michael Smiley. A group of deserters search for fabled buried treasure on a battlefield during the English Civil War. But they face danger both from within their own ranks and from other, more sinister, sources.
The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith plays an English Civil War deserter who has an extreme battlefield epiphany in this experimental horror from director Ben Wheatley (Kill List). Inspired as much by Peter Watkins's seminal 1964 TV film Culloden as horror classic Witchfinder General, the film is challenging in its narrative, often stopping dead to present character tableaux. Starkly beautiful random images prove equally demanding in what is, in effect, a head-scratching meditation on the true meaning of friendship in testing times. The centrepiece is a magic mushroom-induced psychedelic trip, which blows the minds of Shearsmith and his companions, and reassembles certain facets of their personalities. This Jodorowsky-meets-Blackadder curate's egg is not an easy watch, and certainly won't be for everyone. But the black-and-white photography is outstanding, the music - a mix of military drumming and madrigal - evocative, and the flashes of earthy humour caustic, while Michael Smiley, Richard Glover and Shearsmith, as the sinister alchemist, country bumpkin and conflicted antihero, give exemplary performances.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Whitehead | Reece Shearsmith |
| O'Neil | Michael Smiley |
| Cutler | Ryan Pope |
| Friend | Richard Glover |
| Jacob | Peter Ferdinando |
| Trower | Julian Barrett |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Ben Wheatley |
