It isn’t easy finding the point where folk horror and psychedelic horror collide, but writer/director Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth, which debuted last night at the Sundance Film Festival, does it beautifully.
Conceived, written, and filmed during the pandemic–as so many films in 2020 were–In the Earth does not ignore Covid-19, nor does it make it central to the plot. Instead, the pandemic sits on the periphery as something the characters are entirely aware of despite so many other things going on. What’s more, while many of the films created during the pandemic have come with a closed, almost claustrophobic feel, Wheatley impresses by taking us all outside…then making us regret it.
As the film opens, Dr. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) arrives at a research waypoint. His destination is deep in the Arboreal Forest, and soon he and park guide Alma (Ellora Torchia) head into the woods to meet with Lowery’s colleague (Hayley Squires). After they’re attacked in the night, however, they find themselves at the mercy of Zach (Reece Shearsmith), a man living off-grid in the woods whose reasons are deadly.
Wheatley is no stranger to unusual genre work. His previous credits include producing The Greasy Strangler as well as directing Kill List. He also directed Netflix’s new adaptation of Rebecca starring Armie Hammer and Lily James. Still, it felt like he pulled out all the stops as this film gets underway.
The crux of this story lies in the attempt to communicate with nature itself.
Zach has become convinced that Parnag Fegg, a nature spirit who watches over these particular woods, is real and that he can garner favor by worshipping the deity through art and supplication. Alma, meanwhile, has dug into the Malleus Maleficarum, combining pagan rituals with science in an attempt to tap into the “brain” or “mind” of the forest.
What they both manage to induce is a psychedelic landscape where science and magic are the same thing, and if Parnag Fegg exists, it’s entirely possible he’s very, very angry.
Surprisingly, while Censor, which also played the festival, came with a warning about extreme violence and gore, that film had nothing on Wheatley’s creation. There are brutal moments in this film in which the filmmaker teases the audience, threatening to show us more than what we’re ready to see before pulling back in such a way that we’re never entirely sure what we witnessed.
That feeling of unease creeps into the rest of the film, as well. The visuals and sounds of the film bring a feeling of sitting in a chair with a leg that you know could break at any moment.
What saves the film, and the audience, are the performances by Wheatley’s cast. This is top-notch talent bringing their A-game to every scene, no matter what they’re playing. Among them, I found Squires particularly good. There had to have been times while reading the script that she turned to the writer/director and asked, “And what is this all supposed to mean again?” but she never faltered in the performance. You will believe, at the very least, that she believes what she’s talking about and that is saying something.
Overall, In the Earth plays like the spiritual relative of films like Mandy and Color Out of Space with a healthy dose of The Ritual thrown in for good measure. If any, or all, of those films interest you, you will definitely want to check this one out.
I think what sells the film best, however, is that it is about seeking order in chaos, reason in the face of the unimaginable. And that is a feeling we as a collective species have come to know all too well in the last year.
Keep your eyes peeled for In the Earth as a larger release later this year, and stay tuned to iHorror for more Sundance coverage in the week to come!
Featured Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Neon