It’s rare these days for a film to genuinely creep me out. After decades of watching horror movies, the great, the good and the intolerably bad, it takes a lot to shake me up. So when I tell you that Ben Wheatley’s Kill List got under my skin like one of those leech-like critters in David Cronenberg’s They Came From Within, it’s both a warning and a recommendation. Kill List should come with its own rating FYU (fuck you up).

Kill List manages to to do something that only really good art does: it is the thing it is about. This hellaciously unnerving film is as evil as the evil it depicts. When I reflect on some of the most disturbing films I’ve seen - Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist - I recall them not as compositions of various crafts - acting, direction, etc. - I re-experience them in their totality, a dark brand seared into the folds of my brain matter. These are not mere movies, they’re a form of magic, as arcane as alchemy and as modern as Blu Ray. They deposit the Devil’s cash in your memory bank, where it gains interest over the years, but the only checks you can write against it are in your nightmares.

Kill List has a mindbending plot, fine acting, direction and a superb score. You can find out more about the film online. The critical chatter is mostly positive. But this is not a review. It is, as I said, a warning and a recommendation. For fans of the kind of horror that sinks into you like the fangs of a blood-famished vampire, Wheatley’s infernal concoction should do the trick.