Moves from skin-prickling unreadability to pure macabre gusto : Reece Shearsmith in In the Earth
Dir: Ben Wheatley; Starring: Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Reece Shearsmith, Hayley Squires. Cert tbc, 106 mins
“It’s a psychological problem with humans – we want to make stories out of everything,” tuts Dr Olivia Wendell (Hayley Squires) in one of In the Earth’s later scenes. Except, of course, it’s not a problem at all: it’s a means of survival.
Written and shot entirely during last year’s lockdowns and tier restrictions, and premiering last night at the Sundance Film Festival, the extraordinary new film from Ben Wheatley is a mind-warping folk horror freak-out for the Covid age. It isn’t about the pandemic as such – although it does unfold during one, in what looks to be modern-day Britain, at some point after Bristol “took a bad hit during the third wave”. Rather, Wheatley’s film refracts the isolation, confusion and dizzying senses of stasis and strangene