What begins as an alert and witty barbed satire degenerates into a senseless bloodbath in the black comedy “Sightseers.”
Alice Lowe and Steve Oram (who also co-wrote the film, directed by Ben Wheatley) play a pair of middle-aged lovers still getting to know each other as they map out a quaint northern English vacation of tram museums and campgrounds. Tina (Lowe) has just lost her beloved dog but can’t lose her annoying elderly mother, whereas Chris (Oram) gets unreasonably edgy when confronted with litter. Soon each of them finds an outlet in murder.
The loose, observational comedy of the opening develops into a class fable (the two working-class heroes become increasingly annoyed by their social superiors), but in the second half the killings start to become random and the leads, so likable in the early going and at least relatable in the middle, start to seem more like psychopaths capable of being set off by anything. The movie winds up feeling like a first draft of something that could have been great.