Bait

Emmerdale regular Dominic Brunt made an impressive directorial debut with 2013 horror Before Dawn, a terrifying and emotionally resonant take on the zombie apocalypse. There are monsters in his tense sophomore feature, too, but these brutes are all too real, as newspaper headlines from austerity Britain can testify. In a town in northern Britain, best friends Bex (Victoria Smurfit) and Dawn (Joanne Mitchell) struggle to expand their market-stall business, which leaves them at the mercy of a charming but ruthless loan shark (brilliantly and chillingly played by RSC actor Jonathan Slinger). Let's just say he makes them an offer he won't let them refuse. Brunt creates an ominous atmosphere punctuated by staccato bursts of shocking violence against anyone who gets in the scoundrel's way - age, gender or disability (Dawn has an autistic son) are no protection against his depredations or the brutality of his man-mountain sidekick (Adam Fogerty). Slinger creates a memorably vile villain, whose excruciating smugness is a mere mask for murderous menace. But be warned, the climax (echoing the kitchen scene from Hitchcock's Torn Curtain) is definitely not for the faint-hearted.