SummaryAs the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them.
SummaryAs the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them.
Wheatley and his collaborators have produced something that some of us thought would be impossible: an outrageously entertaining film that feels utterly rooted in the bleak era in which it was made. Lockdown project or not, it’s a milestone.
In the Earth brings us back to Wheatley’s classic world of occult loopy weirdness and cult Britmovie seediness, with a new topical dimension of pandemic paranoia, and what keeps you watching is its unreadable, almost undetectable thread of black comedy.
Like a cross between BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW and MIDSOMMAR. If that is your cup of mushroom tea, you’ll know it, and you’re in for a treat. It’s understandable that’s NOT a lot of people’s cup, but so why are you watching a Ben Wheatley film? Sigh. Anyway, this film is tense, terrifying, well-acted and psychedelic. I loved it.
Very interesting, with camera and effects sequences that border on madness, immersed in a reckless hippie dream. I think the film showed what it wanted, but there are moments of emptiness in the screen and in the characters, which can't really convey the feeling that I imagine would be the dichotomy of solitude in nature and that splendor.
In the Earth is engrossing even in moments that might challenge both patience and logic. And despite the slight nudge towards something more commercial, Ben Wheatley’s art-house reputation remains solid.
The final 20 or so minutes of In the Earth are downright impenetrable, and while that’s no doubt the point, it doesn’t make the experience any less frustrating. In a sense, Wheatley has successfully recreated the experience of stumbling around, lost in the woods, unable to see the forest for the trees.
By the time Wheatley, who also edited, concludes with a full-on eye-searing weird-out, it’s hard not to feel that he is retreading old ground – that this isn’t a more arboreally lavish A Field in England 2.0.
Perhaps months or even years from now, it will be easier to disassociate the film from the real-world details that influenced its creation and give it a second look. In the present, though, In the Earth feels like a project designed to stave up boredom. Perhaps it did, for Wheatley and his crew. For everyone else, the memories of watching will be quickly buried.
This might have just convinced me to start watching movie trailers again. So much of In the Earth's other promotional material was/is misleading. Things such as its "Nature is a Force of Evil" tagline, the various synopses you can find out there that say things like "as the forest comes to life around them," and even the alternative poster that sees a plant growing up into the nose of actress Ellora Torchia paint the picture of a biological nightmare akin to the Annihilation adaptation we should have gotten back in 2018. What we were actually given instead though is a cult horror flick where our protagonists get tormented by a deranged weirdo with some serious old-world religious fanatical issues, which while not terrible is nowhere near as intriguing as what it was implied to be offering.
Born during the first year and out of the frustrations of our modern pandemic era, the film tells the story of a world ravaged by its own virus. It explores the effects of isolation on the human mind and the things people will be willing to latch onto no matter how illogical or untested if it comes with any sort of promise of relief from their stresses and fears. While it's cool to see something that encapsulates and plays on so many of our present day anxieties as we're still in the midst of being afflicted by them, the film's timeliness is a bit of a double-edged sword. Reportedly scripted and filmed in a mere two weeks, the project's spur-of-the-moment nature makes it simultaneously both impressive and half-baked.
The science at the core of the plot shows signs of depth, but is ultimately brought down by it's lack of exposition and explanation behind character's actions. Meanwhile the hallucinogenic visuals and coarse synth soundtrack craft one heck of an atmosphere that sadly only feigns the presence of the supernatural without anything of actual terror manifesting to show for it. A somewhat unrelated complaint, but this may also be the sole time I've had to watch a movie where everyone spoke English with the subtitles on because a portion of the cast's accents were too thick to understand. Joel Fry is borderline unintelligible throughout.
In the Earth deserves some praise for what writer and director Ben Wheatley was able to cook up in such a brief period. There's always something engaging to look at and listen to due to the unique stylistic flourishes. Yet, while I'm willing to admit part of my disappointment stems from what I expected to be here without having looked at any of the pre-release footage available beforehand, the final product wasn't fleshed out enough to fully engage me with what it did provide regardless. It's a compelling idea that was fast-tracked to capitalize on the legitimate day-to-day struggles we're call facing in this very moment, leaving it short off the necessary development that could have made it truly impactful and with me wishing it had been more.
In this indie horror pic, a scientist and park scout venture into the forest for their routine equipment run in the midst of a pandemic, but get much more than they bargained for. To give away too much would be doing the film a disservice, but unfortunately that hardly matters in my opinion, since the film ultimately proved to be much of a letdown for me. Granted, there are some genuinely tense and creepy moments, especially in the given context of the pandemic that we ourselves have been witnessing this past year, but they're mostly overshadowed by an unfocused story, especially in the second half when the film begins to really lose its bearings. There's decent acting involved from the select few actors in this film, but even they can't pick up the slack of the film's story, and the further it went on, the more aimless, pointless and random it all began to feel. I found it increasingly difficult to make sense of anything in much of the second half. Overall, a creepy atmosphere simply isn't enough to overcome the shortcomings of this film's random and unfocused story, along with a lack of more genuine scares.
First off: the warning is no joke! If you have issue with seizures sparked by visual stimuli do not watch this movie. I don't have any issues and it was painful to sit through that.
Now, the movie. Thoroughly average movie that should've ended 30 minutes earlier than its current run time. The rest of the audience mimicked my pain by checking the time also as boredom set it. The movie had potential but it gets lost along the way. The professional review score is too high and subsequentially misleading. Pay attention to the user score which I am sure will be more representative of the movie's actual entertainment value.