Holidays can be murder, particularly in the hands of one couple who have perfected the art. They talk to Alison Jones.

Imagine in Summer Holiday if Hank and the Shadows had snapped and bludgeoned Cliff Richard with their guitars at the very first warble of "We're all goin' on a..."

Or Priscilla Queen of the Desert if Guy Pearce had ended up skewered through the eye with a stiletto heel for offences to disco and/or scratching Priscilla's paintwork.

It would have put a rather different, and much gorier, complexion on the travellin' good times.

Bear that in mind if you are ever to drop a discarded wrapper in front of an inoffensive looking, cagoule-clad tourist on a day out at a local landmark.

For beneath the layers of Gor-Tex and harmless eccentricity there might beat the heart of a sociopath.

That is the premise behind Sightseers, a new film starring Steve Oram and Alice Lowe that combines stunning scenery and gift shop kitsch-collecting with serial killing.

Steve, who originally comes from Worcester, and Alice, who grew up in Kenilworth, have been fine-tuning their characters of Chris and Tina for years in a comedy double act, creating them from memories of days out during their childhoods.

"The whole idea started as a bit of a joke. We thought it would be funny to have Brummies killing people and then going to castles, explains Steve.

"We'd come on to stage with sandwiches talking about places we had visited - geeky stuff - and then we'd talk about disposing of a body in a lay-by."

Convinced the concept had legs beyond the live show, they put it together as an idea of television.

"The TV channels said it was too dark," says Alice. "We sent a taster to Edgar Wright (director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) and he said 'I think there is a film in this and I would like to executive produce'."

The rest, as Steve is fond of saying, is history, and the completed movie, directed by Ben Wheatley, who made Down Terrace and Kill List, is out next week - with a sold out preview screening being presented by Steve and Alice at The Electric next Thursday.

Chris and Tina's killing spree starts out (possibly) by accident when he backs his caravan into a litter bug who had annoyed him. But gradually things spiral as the murders are prompted by petty jealousies or as an irrational reaction to perceived criticism.

"It is really the journey of a relationship," says Alice. "The killings are a metaphor for the trials they go through. We wanted people to identify with the experience of going on holiday and having a quarrel with your wife or boyfriend.

"You have to have some kind of identification with the characters to be able to stick with them as anti-heroes really."

It follows in a long tradition of ink black Ealing comedies, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers, blended with the more American genre of road movies - resulting a very British-style Badlands or Natural Born Killers.

Steve and Alice had stayed true to their roots when developing the characters and kept them as Midlanders, hoping to show Brummies in a new - if bloodstained - light.

"The Midlands is a middle place with nothing going on, but that is precisely why we thought it was good they were from there," says Steve.

"Characters like Barry from Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Ozzy Osbourne and Mark Williams going 'we wanna be together' in those (Prudential) ads have created a stereotype that is really annoying and not fair for such a huge region.

"This was a chance to do something with a bit more depth. To show Brummies are funny but they also have a bit of an edge to them. A bit of mettle."

"It is hard sometimes to find what makes Birmingham," adds Alice.

"Growing up I certainly didn't feel very cool, having come from the Midlands. You can sort of see that in Tina's character. She is someone who has struggled to find a voice for herself.

"In a way it is a parallel me if I had been much shyer as a person. It is that version of me who is perhaps still living at home with my mum.