Pearce impresses as a writer drawn out of tragedy-imposed hiding in an atmospheric thriller that ultimately blows hot air

This atmospheric thriller stars the always compelling Guy Pearce as recluse Bruce Cogburn, a gruff novelist living alone with only his north of England accent for company. Cogburn lives alone because back in the 1980s, he wrote a novel called The Infernal Machine, a fable-like story about a priest who meets God. Somehow, Cogburn’s book inspired a young man named Dwight Tufford (played by Alex Pettyfer), who he’d never met, to climb a clock tower and kill people with a rifle, like mass murderer Charles Whitman back in 1966.

Now, in the film’s present 25 years later (which would place the action some time in the early 00s), Cogburn starts receiving handwritten letters from someone called William DuKent. DuKent is also an author who seemingly wants to write a book about The Infernal Machine,...