A creepy folk horror set in a rural Scottish village riddled with evil activity, plus Robert De Niro and Adam Scott star in a gripping serial killer thriller inspired by a hit book
Athina Rachel Tsangari’s adaptation of Jim Crace’s novel looks like a homage to 1970s British folk horror films – complete with Wicker Man-style animal masks and rituals. But the evils turns out to be more economic and social than supernatural. In an unnamed rural Scottish village, the diffident Master Kent (Harry Melling) rules benignly over the agricultural workers, including his former servant, the reserved Walter (Caleb Landry Jones). But then Kent’s cousin (Frank Dillane) arrives with plans to enclose the common land and raise sheep. The inequities of power, and the way the dispossessed can blame outsiders for their lot, come to the fore in a brooding, earthy tragedy.
Friday 4 September, 11.05pm, BBC Two