In the Earth

An odd bird, Ben Wheat­ley. Since his 2009 debut Down Ter­race, he’s cement­ed his rep­u­ta­tion as one of the most excit­ing British film­mak­ers of the 21^st cen­tu­ry. Yet his last film – a glossy adap­ta­tion of Daphne du Maurier’s ​‘Rebec­ca’, made for Net­flix with an all-star cast – felt devoid of any iden­ti­fy­ing fea­tures; a Wheat­ley movie in name but not spir­it. Even his big-name movies (High-Rise and Free Fire) felt a lit­tle watered down, lack­ing the glib eccen­tric­i­ty of his ear­li­er work.

It’s some­thing of a relief, then, that his lat­est thriller – shot on loca­tion under Covid restric­tions with a small cast and crew – feels like a return to the days of Kill List and A Field in Eng­land. Although the prospect of being inun­dat­ed with ​‘pan­dem­ic cin­e­ma’ over the next few years is enough to set a critic’s teeth on edge, In the Earth feels like the best ver­sion of a film that speaks to our cur­rent moment.

Yes, it’s about a world rav­aged by ill­ness, but it doesn’t repli­cate the cir­cum­stances we’ve all lived under for the past year. Instead, it’s an eco­log­i­cal night­mare, draw­ing on Wheatley’s inter­est in cults, ​“British­ness” as a phe­nom­e­non and, of course, psy­che­del­ic mushrooms.

Against this back­drop of a glob­al pan­dem­ic, Dr Mar­tin Low­ery (Joel Fry) ven­tures to an iso­lat­ed research facil­i­ty locat­ed deep in the Arbo­re­al For­est, assist­ed by park scout Alma (Ello­ra Torchia). After being attacked and robbed by unknown assailants, Mar­tin and Alma are approached by a her­mit named Zach (Reece Shear­smith) who offers them assis­tance, which nat­u­ral­ly comes with a steep price. What fol­lows is a psy­che­del­ic fever dream fuelled by scenes of stom­ach-churn­ing body hor­ror and dis­ori­en­tat­ing sound design.

The film feels like the love child of Kill List and A Field in Eng­land by way of Alex Garland’s Anni­hi­la­tion, but cleaves clos­er to straight hor­ror, with a creep­ing sense of dread estab­lished from its open­ing scene. As poor Mar­tin bears the brunt of the vio­lence, it’s a won­der Fry hasn’t been cast in more lead­ing roles up to now. He endures every­thing with a com­i­cal sense of res­ig­na­tion, while Alma assumes the more hero­ic role. It’s a fun inver­sion of gen­der stereo­types, and Fry and Torchia make for a win­ning duo. Shear­smith, mean­while, has a ball as the unhinged (yet unnerv­ing­ly polite) drifter, while Hay­ley Squires keeps the audi­ence con­stant­ly guess­ing as an aloof, obses­sive scientist.

In the Earth is a wel­come dose of mind-bend­ing weird­ness from Wheat­ley and sug­gests that he works best when direct­ing from his own mate­r­i­al and work­ing with a local cast. It’s not that Wheat­ley should only make hor­ror films (Hap­py New Year, Col­in Burstead was new ter­ri­to­ry for him, and equal­ly delight­ful) but some­thing is lost when the bud­gets and star wattage increas­es. Still, he’s sched­uled to direct a sequel to the Jason Statham giant shark B‑movie The Meg, he remains a true cin­e­mat­ic enigma.