In the Earth (Ben Wheatley’s follow up to his
Rebecca adaptation) integrates a deadly pandemic into its plot. But rather than focus on the fear and death it produces, Wheatley uses instead the resulting isolation to create unnerving horror.
The film begins as Dr. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) arrives at a scientific camp outside a forest. After testing to ensure he has not been contaminated, Martin embarks with colleague Alma (Ellora Torchia, seen in Ari Aster’s
Midsommar) on a trek through the forest towards the camp of another researcher (Hayley Squires) who has stopped communicating with the base. It is on that long journey alone among the trees that things begin to go wrong for Martin and Alma: they are attacked in the night, their gear goes missing, and Zach (Reece Shearsmith), the kindly eccentric who rescues them, turns out not to be kind at all.
In the Earth Review: Treat Yourself to a Shot of COVID-Inspired Wheatley Weirdness In the Earth Review: Treat Yourself to a Shot of COVID-Inspired Wheatley Weirdness
It s somehow fitting that a horror helmer whose career kicked off with viral videos has gone and made a pandemic movie that infects the id.
Peter Debruge, provided by
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Running time: Running time: 100 MIN.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Last year, Ben Wheatley released a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” in which his heroine suffers a trippy newlywed’s nightmare. She’s married to Armie Hammer, following him through the halls of Manderley, and the hallway carpet turns to crawling ivy, grabbing her ankles and pulling her down toward hell. This hallucination stands out in the otherwise traditional film, but it’s one of the few moments in “Rebecca” where we sense the filmmaker’s personality coming through. That freaky interlude might as well have been a trailer for Wheatl
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – In the Earth
SYNOPSIS:
As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep into the forest for a routine equipment run.
Ben Wheatley is a filmmaker whose prodigious talents are matched only by the infuriating inconsistency of his output, so it’s a pleasure to report that his latest – a pandemic-adjacent horror film conceived and then shot over two weeks last year – is a striking return to form.
In the reality of the film, the world has been scarred by a deadly virus, as Dr. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) sets off on a mission to reach a research hub in the Arboreal Forest where his colleague Dr. Wendel is waiting. Joined by park scout Alma (Ellora Torchia), Martin’s journey becomes increasingly fraught as it appears that something or someone is actively working against him making safe passage through the forest.
Reece Shearsmith in In the Earth
Dead and buried.
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Ben Wheatley nurtures his genre roots with this viral isolation thriller that draws a menacing blurred line between man and nature in an alienating world gripped by a pandemic.
An ominous score by Clint Mansell mixing electronic dread with insidious melody toils in search of a more coherent horror scenario in Ben Wheatley s disorienting slog,
In the Earth. Whether it s a palate cleanser after the constricting labor of Netflix s
Rebecca remake or simply a work of creative restlessness cooked up by a resourceful director who honed his skills making more with less, this hallucinogenic fairy tale set during the third wave of a global pandemic and shot under COVID-19 guidelines becomes progressively less interesting after its intriguing start. The cluttered plot keeps surging forward while providing too few illuminating insights, instead loading up on mystical mumbo jumbo and flashes of gore.
While not a total win, In the Earth remains a much-needed leap back in the right direction for Ben Wheatley. Photograph: AP
As film and TV production shut down along with so many other industries during the devastating year that wasnât, some creators found ways of using a restricted landscape to still make something,
anything, a way to busy themselves while also keeping some faint stream of content alive, a weak trickle but a trickle nonetheless. For those of us whoâve been documenting the results, it might sound mean-spirited to say that the majority of them shouldnât have bothered but the standard has been