Visceral Images announces itself quietly. One night, one location, a woman trying to make sense of what’s happening around her. Then it hits you. That’s exactly the point.

Edward Palmer‘s second feature, premiering in competition at the Manchester Film Festival, is a slow-burn psychological thriller that keeps its audience locked in its protagonist’s perspective. Knowing only what she knows, feeling only what she feels.

At the centre of it is Imogen King, whose performance as Freya is the film’s anchor. Palmer wanted the audience inside her head, and King delivered that from the inside out. The shoot was gruelling: night shifts, a single location, King fighting illness midway through. “The night shoots make you feel very delirious,” she says, “and in a way I think that added to the character. Freya is lost in lots of ways, really trying to connect to a sense of self.” That sense of disorientation, it turns out, was built into the walls. Actor Vishnu Krishnan, who shares that confined space with King on screen, found the single location heightened everything. “The story happens over one night. Having that contained location felt right.“

The ending is already sparking conversation. Palmer is happy about that. “When you speak to your friend afterwards, they’re asking whose fault you think it was, why you think it happened.“

Whether or not there’s a definitive answer, Visceral Images is the kind of film that lingers. See it with someone you can argue with afterwards.