Ben Wheatley is a busy bee — he’s directed five movies since breaking out with “Down Terrace” in 2009, plus a couple of “Doctor Who” episodes too, with his latest, the hugely enjoyable “Free Fire” (read our TIFF review) bowing just a few months after his previous movie “High Rise” opened in theaters. Each film is distinctly different, but shares a particularly Wheatley-ian sensibility, one that stretches beyond the catastrophic head injuries at least one character ends up suffering in the pictures.
Wheatley’s had the benefit of some patronage by big-name directors on his movies that helped them find audiences: Edgar Wright was executive producer on “Sightseers,” Martin Scorsese on “Free Fire.” And now he’s made his name, Wheatley’s paying it forward, having lent his name to great, low-fi movies like “The Duke Of Burgundy,” “Aaaaaaaaah!” and “The Greasy Strangler” so far.
And now, one more has arrived, and you can get your first look at a trailer for ‘The Ghoul,” executive produced by Wheatley. Directed by actor-turned-director Gareth Tunley (who appeared in “Kill List” and “Sightseers”), the film also includes a number of other familiar Wheatley faces like Alice Lowe and Dan Renton Skinner, alongside Tom Meeten (“Paddington”), Niamh Cusack and Paul Kaye.
But this doesn’t appear to be a comedy — instead, it’s a dark thriller about a detective (Meeten) who goes undercover as the patient of a psychiatrist in order to solve a murder. The trailer seems reminiscent of early, “Following” or “Memento” era Christopher Nolan, which is intriguing. The film premieres at the BFI London Film Festival next month — we’ll let you know how it turns out if we see it there.
A British thriller with a mind of its own, get inside the head of The Ghoul at #LFF https://t.co/XNgojhJYRp pic.twitter.com/Ya94xBCiCM
— BFI (@BFI) September 11, 2016