How do you comply with one thing as distinctive as Bait? Author, director and editor Mark Jenkin’s 16mm black-and-white curio about Edward Rowe’s boatless Cornish fisherman waging battle on gentrification arrived in 2019 to rapturous evaluations, worldwide competition appreciation and BAFTA glory. It will probably depend Mark Kermode and Quentin Tarantino amongst its fanbase – actually, after profitable a BAFTA for Bait, Jenkin bumped into QT on the ceremony. “He mentioned, ‘You’re the Bait man!’” Jenkin marvels to Empire. “He mentioned, ‘I used to be watching the clip and thought, “What is that this? Some form of Italian neo-realist factor I’ve by no means heard of ?”’. However whereas all that approval was welcome, it did imply the strain was on when Enys Males began to come back collectively…

“With this one, everybody knew that the stakes had been greater,” says Mary Woodvine, who was in Bait, and has adopted Jenkin to the brand new mission. “On the set, there was no distinction. However I believe everyone’s inner dialogue was, ‘Fuck, this higher be good.’ This was the tough second album.” It’s nonetheless in grainy 16mm monochrome, and nonetheless set across the Cornish coast, however Enys Males’s vibe is extra that of a Seventies folks horror. Woodvine performs an remoted wildlife volunteer who begins experiencing weirdness round a Bronze-Age standing stone. Jenkin has “defined” to us beforehand that it’s about “time shifting backwards in addition to forwards”. Trippy.

Regardless of the step-up in scale for this second function, it’s pretty secure to say that, whereas he’s loved the essential and media consideration of the previous few years, his areas of curiosity are unlikely to steer him to Hollywood fairly but. “I’m the identical as anyone,” he laughs. “I get interested in showbiz. I really like the glamour of it. However I do know sufficient to assume that if I in some way received provided a Marvel movie… I believe I’d be a type of administrators who wasn’t there by the top. Perhaps I’d get the pay cheque, and we may get our roof performed, however a secure pair of palms would are available and simply reshoot absolutely the nightmare that I’d created.” A Mark Jenkin-created “nightmare” set within the MCU? Would watch!

Learn Empire’s full function on Enys Males – an intentional nightmare – within the new Evaluation Of The Yr challenge, on sale tomorrow, or out there to pre-order right here. Enys Males is in cinemas from 13 January 2023.