Sightseers (2012)

Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.

Director:

Ben Wheatley

Writers:

Amy Jump (additional material), Alice Lowe (screenplay),

Stars:

Alice Lowe, Eileen Davies, Steve Oram

7 wins & 16 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alice Lowe	...	Tina
Eileen Davies	...	Carol
Steve Oram	...	Chris
Roger Michael	...	Tram Conductor
Tony Way	...	Crich Tourist
Seamus O'Neill	...	Mr. Grant
Monica Dolan	...	Janice
Jonathan Aris	...	Ian
Aymen Hamdouchi	...	Chalid Sulinan
Tom Meetan	...	Head Shaman
Kali Peacock	...	Hiking Shop Assistant
Kenneth Hadley	...	Richard
Stephanie Jacob	...	Joan
Christine Talbot	...	Newsreader
Richard Lumsden	...	Rambler

Storyline

Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.

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Plot Keywords:

caravan | dark comedy | england | driven over the edge | cyclist | 

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Taglines:

Evil has a knitted jumper.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 May 2013 (USA)

Also Known As:

Turistas

Filming Locations:

Keswick, Lake District, Cumbria, England, UK

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$7,384 (USA) (10 May 2013)

Gross:

$35,722 (USA) (31 May 2013)

Company Credits

Production Co:

StudioCanal, Film4, BFI

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The trams at Crich mostly ran along the streets of cities in United Kingdom before the 1960s, with some trams rescued and restored (even from other countries) as the systems closed. The town of Matlock is close by and the nearest train service is from Whatstandwell railway station on the Derwent Valley Line (Derby-Matlock line), with a steep walk up to the museum at the top of the hill.

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Goofs

Early in the film, when Tina's hair is being brushed by her mother, there is a cut to Tina with her mother visible behind her. Although we can hear her talking, her mouth is shut.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Tina: Mum? Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. You all right?

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Connections

References Withnail & I (1987)

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Soundtracks

"Nimrod from Enigma Variations"
Written by Sir Edward Elgar
Performed by the Slovak RSO conducted by Adrian Leaper
Licensed courtesy of Naxos Rights International Ltd

User Reviews

When Mike Leigh's Nuts in May met Terrence Malick's Badlands

If you fell asleep after watching a double bill of Mike Leigh's Nuts in May and Terrence Malick's Badlands, you might wake up with the idea for Sightseers, the latest film from Ben Wheatley, acclaimed director of Down Terrace and Kill List. Alice Lowe and Steve Oram play Tina and Chris, a couple who head out on a caravan tour of Yorkshire's Peak District, taking in such points of interest as the Crich Tramway Museum, Ribblehead Viaduct and the Keswick Pencil Museum. But Chris harbours a secret: he is a serial killer, with a tendency for sudden, explosive outbursts which result in the violent deaths of random strangers who have crossed, or simply inconvenienced him in some way. When the none-too-bright Tina finally cottons onto the fact that Chris has murdered at least two people since their sightseeing holiday began, she faces a stark choice between returning alone to her overbearing mother, or continuing to accompany her barmy boyfriend on his murderous spree – the option of shopping him to the authorities apparently not occurring to her.

Sightseers was dreamed up by Lowe and Oram as a logical extension of characters they have played on stage for several years, and as a work of character observation, Tina and Chris feel as real as any created by Mike Leigh, using a similar kind of improvisational character workshopping with his repertoire of actors. Here, such is the strength of the principal characters – in particular, Tina's vividly-drawn and expertly-played mother – it feels like a failure of imagination, or even a cop-out, when the killings begin. If this was a throwaway British horror flick like The Cottage or Revenge of Billy the Kid, it wouldn't matter, but Wheatley is clearly capable of delivering something far more incisive than a slasher flick, and would perhaps do well to make a film where nobody gets tortured, mutilated or murdered. After all, it takes a great deal more skill to make films like those of Leigh and Joanna Hogg – writer-director of Unrelated and Archipelago, two achingly painful films about dysfunctional English families on holiday – in which nobody gets killed, but everybody hurts.

The widespread critical acclaim which greeted Wheatley's Kill List, which began like a Mike Leigh film and ended like The Wicker Man, will guarantee that Sightseers will garner a great deal of attention. Horror fans will no doubt delight in the bloody direction Wheatley's black comedy takes, laughing with glee as each new murder is carried out and excused, in increasingly episodic fashion, with diminishing returns, until an ending is suddenly decided upon, seemingly for no better reason than the feature-length clock has run out. On sober reflection, however, even the most ardent Sightseers fan might be given to admit that a lack of bloody murder never hurt Nuts in May, and Badlands wouldn't have been improved by being played for laughs. and, if they're being really honest, that there's nothing much in Sightseers that doesn't feel like warmed-up leftovers from The League of Gentlemen or Nighty Night – except, perhaps, for the enduring symbol of crap British holidays, the caravan.