As the pressure begins to build, the dynamic between the two friends becomes ever more fraught. Palmer keeps escalating the stakes throughout, gradually ramping up the tension as the secret Vaughn and Marcus are concealing gets ever closer to being discovered. Vaughn is a mess of nerves and remorse, while the wily, resourceful Marcus is holding himself together with cocaine and sheer survival instinct. Palmer does a brilliant job of building tension just through dialogue, shifting the tone of characters’ interactions to keep us guessing – are the locals just distrustful of all city-types invading their land, or do they suspect these two in particular are hiding something? A dinner scene in particular is a wonderful exercise in sustained, sweaty-palmed suspense as the boys try to keep it together while enjoying some bloody venison with Logan. Where the film most excels is in its drawn out dialogue scenes, as Vaughn and Marcus try to keep a cool head around the locals and avoid arousing any suspicion. Vaughn is grief-stricken and prepared to turn himself in before the boy’s father arrives and Marcus kills him, turning an honest accident into a murder and leaving the lads no choice but to cover it up. That he does, only instead of a deer, Vaughn inadvertently shoots – and kills – a young boy on a hiking trip. The following day, nursing hangovers, the lads head out on the hunt, with the more-experienced Marcus keen for Vaughn to get his first kill. They start off with the drinking, finding a local pub where Marcus’ drug-fuelled antics catch the eye of the more-reserved townsfolk, including de facto leader Logan (Tony Curran), who is friendly but stern. Lowden stars as Vaughn, a mild-mannered Edinburger who has a baby on the way, prompting his best mate Marcus (McCann) to drag him out of the city and up to the highlands for a weekend of deer stalking and hard drinking. Set in a small town trying to keep itself afloat, the film dabbles with themes of tight-knit community and economic anxiety, but it’s real raison d’etre is suspense and heart-in-mouth tension. The Scottish Highlands are as menacing as they are majestic in Matt Palmer’s Calibre, a nerve-shredding thriller that sees Jack Lowden and Martin McCann’s city boys caught in a rural nightmare when a hunting trip goes badly wrong.

Calibre film critique