Director: Neil Maskell

Stars: Amit Shah, Sura Dohnke, Tom Burke, Jenna Coleman, Roger Evans, Jenna Coleman

As befits his usual screen persona, the debut feature from actor-turned-director Neil Maskell is an unsettling dark comic drama.

IT worker Ewan Appleby (Shah from ‘Happy Valley’) and his wife Silke (Dohnke) have relocated from the UK to the titular town in her native Belgium, after Ewan has leaked Government information to a newspaper - the title of the picture is Dutch for bell-ringer / whistle-blower. Nervous and agitated (‘My blood pressure must be like the back tyre of Concorde’) Ewan and his wife rattle around their new home waiting to meet a journalist. Watching over them are a pair of ill-matched minders, the louche, discreet Chris (Burke) and the garrulous Welshman Glynn (Evan), the duo’s exchanges providing the picture’s biggest laughs.

Maskell maintains a brisk pace over an economic 85-minute running time while summoning up a palpable sense of unease via charged, unsettling dialogue. The feeling of disorientation is augmented by Andy Shortwave’s retro synth score and cinematographer Nick Gillespie’s skewwhiff framing and oppressive rendering of the overcast Belgium skies. It’s an oblique debut but a compelling one.

Klokkenluider is released 1st September

David Willoughby

Follow David on Twitter @DWill_Crackfilm