King of the Hill

The very definition of low budget – six or seven characters, a handful of guns, a couple of cars and one large, dark forest – ‘King of the Hill’ is a tense, competent if ultimately directionless thriller. The plot, such as it is, is strikingly simple: driver Quim (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and his mysterious companion Bea (Maria Valverde) become stranded in a remote mountain region, hunted by an invisible and ruthless sniper.

The film looks a lot better than it has any right to: Lopez-Gallego shoots with a keen sense of both landscape and suspense, hemming his inexplicably hunted characters in with moments of tight, claustrophobic intensity before pulling back to reveal their helpless isolation. It’s a shame these figures aren’t more compelling – we never for a moment care what happens to them – but as a work of hard-driving tension, this is satisfyingly terse, methodical and relentless.