Neil Maskell’s writing and directorial debut feature Klokkenluider pulls you in completely and leads you down the bleakest corners of paranoid, with quite the medley of dark comedy along the way.  

Set in 2014, in Belgium no less, you’d know director Maskell for his lead roles in the likes of Kill List, Utopia and Bull, and you get a real sense of his direction with ideas he’s picked up along those routes and much more, as this very much holds its own edge of them all here. Oddly disturbing yet watchable, setting up comfort and comedy alongside the unsettling whilst using the finest of thin lines.

Klokkenluider really gets into your head, much like those early tight episodes of Black Mirror, whereas you’re not really trusting anything, nor what path it’s taking you on, but somehow you’re still here – taking all the strangeness in. The film sets it focus around government whistleblowers ‘Mr and Mrs Appleby’ – which is the ‘given’ name to the lead characters played expertly by Amit Shah and Sura Dohnke.  

The couple have fled the country in fear of being hunted down by the government for accidentally discovering an earth-shattering secret, and found themselves hiding away in a remote lakeside house, joined by two protection officers – played by Tom Burke and Roger Evans – who’ve been assigned by an unnamed newspaper to look after them and their top level secret, so they can share their truth to a journalist, who is on her way to meet them.

Whilst the quartet keep themselves mainly indoors, and wait for the writer to arrive, the initial distant relationship between the couple and the security duo is always one to question, and while you’ll have assumptions over what might be going from very early on, and I don’t think the motives or setups are subtle, there’s little doubt that you’ll be waiting to see if that is the conclusion right up to the final frames.

Maskell’s film features a hugely enjoyable combination of editing (from Jason Rayton), sound use (Rob Entwistle, Martin Pavey and Tapio Liukkonen) and story-telling in overlapping cuts, stepping from individual story to other emerging narratives. I liked the use of slo-mo scenes, recalling that first weird essence of Donnie Darko, but this holds a much more eerie vibe, with green and grey cinematography from Nick Gillespie making it earth-bound and believable, even though it might also be the UK, it could be Belgium, it could be anywhere, but maybe that’s the point.

Portrayal wise, everyone brings an air of mystery with personal underlying complications, these characters all have depth. Shah and Dohnke are paranoid and genuine, Burke and Evans hold a deeper unknown yet peculiarly likeable in places – despite lingering feelings – and Jenna Coleman has a blast as an excellent sweary late-arrival (I want to learn her monologue), in from the outside to grab the scoop of the year for the newspapers – if it hasn’t already been found out by them already, of course.

Her character also gives us an interesting insight on advertising and newspapers, which is easier to believe than most, once you’ve heard it. There’s a fine raw emotion to the realities and what we’re shown, as we see every aspect of their lives from sitting on the loo, to having a breakdown, to taking advantage of what you’re good at, or losing advantage because you had no real control in the first place.

Klokkenluider is curiously taut and tension-fuelled, plus the ‘secret’ and that mystery box is maintained in wondrous ways. On the build-up, I possibly wanted an extra twist or turn at the end, but I forgive it because this is filmmaking that puts its all out there. Maybe cynical, maybe true to the core, and a bit messed up, it could be a comment on conspiracies or simply: how it is? Well, you’ll have to watch to find out and make your own conclusions and, remember, don’t have nightmares.

Klokkenluider comes to UK cinemas from 1 September