So goes one of several hugely effective scenes in writer-director Matt Palmer’s Calibre – an indie drama-thriller that quickly establishes its own line in low-key suspense. The colour red weighs heavily on Vaughn’s guilt-ridden mind, and all he can think about is escape. Red wine pouring into a glass crimson blood oozing from a slab of barely-cooked venison on a dinner plateĭark red paint all over the dining room walls. That’s a mixed blessing for a film that certainly deserves the broad exposure of international streaming.īut whose natural habitat is the midnight-movie circuit: Its jackknife shocks, clammy atmospherics and head-filling soundscape would best be enjoyed (or at least endured, at its most palpitating moments) in the immersive darkness of a cinema. That is, if smart genre fiends seek out Matt Palmer’s majorly promising debut feature on Netflix - where it’s set to bow globally on June 29, just one week after its home-turf premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival. But getting out of the woods isn’t even close to getting in the clear in “ Calibre,” a sensationally well-executed nerve-mangler that ought to do for the majestic Scottish Highlands what “Deliverance” did for Appalachia. Calibre is currently streaming on Netflix.A lads’ hunting weekend begins with beers and banter, only to swiftly sober up when two Edinburgh townies wind up shooting entirely the wrong prey. It sinks you into a grey area before stalking you into a corner. Calibre is a film with teeth and muscle but also a heart that bleeds for everyone. This is helped in no small part by Chris Wyatt’s carefully chosen cuts ensuring we see everything without ever seeing more than we should. Márk Györi’s camerawork seamlessly transitions from haunted Romanticism to a queasy but beautifully lit backwoods survivalism. The finale of the film is a slashed to the bone, teeth grinding half hour. Especially as Calibre speeds up towards its unthinkable and yet inevitable conclusion. Viewers wishing to pick a side will end up caught in a vice-like grip as neither side are truly right in their actions. Yet, the accidental tragedy of the film will have many indecisive about whether right and wrong even exist in this world. The locals’ disdain for the two men is easily understood.
Calibre movie how does it end full#
McCann and Lowden play their characters like fish trying to fit into a pond that’s already full up and half drained. A slow build with lots of carefully chosen words and set design mark this as the moment where there is no turning back. Yet it’s to his and the actors’ credit that the scene is as detailed as it is. Palmer could easily have filmed a hokey foreshadowing montage of the dinner. A night time burial is preceded by a bloody venison dinner in a blood-red room. Make no mistake though Calibre is as horrific as they come. Many films are wrongly mislabelled as thrillers when nothing supernatural or monstrous rears its head. A tirade by Logan’s brother Brian (Ian Pirie) feels passionate rather than heavy-handed but Palmer continually refers to the economic depression suffered by the Highlands in subtler ways. He does it with a sensitivity that working-class cinema hero Ken Loach would be proud of.
However, where in John Boorman’s film the locals come across as rape-obsessed hicks, Palmer makes them figures of sympathy in Calibre. He balances this tautness on his knife edge plot.Ĭomparisons have already been drawn to Deliverance. From the moment Vaughn is harassed by a local in the pub Palmer makes the tension of the film felt.
It is a grim film with little levity beyond the lads’ initial bluster. From there things spiral.Ĭalibre feels both inevitable and unbearable. However, at the last second the animal raises its head and Vaughn shoots a child hiker dead. Upon spotting a deer Vaughn lines up his shot. The next morning – much the worse for wear – the two pals set off to do some stalking. Upon arrival the timid Vaughn and coke fiend Marcus hit the pub where the locals are everything but hospitable barring successful farmer Logan (Tony Curran) and flirty local women. Old friends Vaughn (Jack Lowden, Dunkirk) and Marcus (Martin McCann, The Survivalist) are off to the Scottish Highlands for one last hurrah before Vaughn gets married to his newly pregnant fiancé. In Matt Palmer’s lean and mean debut feature Calibre stalking takes on a horrifying new meaning. Most will agree it is the stalking of the kill rather than the killing itself that is the best part of hunting.
Ask any hunter from Ernest Hemingway to infamous sniper Carlos Hathcock. Hunting is often referred to as “stalking” by those with a knowledge of the controversial sport.
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