There is a plague in England the plague that we happen to be living through, as writer/director Ben Wheatley started writing the script for “In the Earth,” early in the 2020 lockdown. As such, it’s a quarantine film that actually captures the world we’re living in, of surgical masks and nasal swabs and social distancing.
The extreme caution and danger that the plague dictates adds an extra layer of threat to “In the Earth,” a film that draws from a deep well of horror references, from “Frankenstein” to “The Wicker Man.”
Wheatley has dabbled in folk horror before, notably in “Kill List” and “A Field in England,” but the subgenre, which grapples with the clash of the ancient and the modern, is especially suited to a story like “In the Earth,” troubled by mysterious rhythms of the earth, and their effect on the human body and mind. Just when it seems like nature is out to get us, Ben Wheatley reminds us that, indeed, it is. Unless it’s just us.
Ben Wheatley Goes Digging In The Earth
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In the Earth : at play in the fields of the weird
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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