‘These are his memories…’
British director Ben Wheatley has had a curious career. He received acclaim for early work The Kill List and Sightseers, seemed to move away from the mainstream with his trippy fever dream A Field in England before finally settling in Hollywood with his Netflix distributed take on Rebecca and most recently Warner Bros. Meg 2: The Trench. In between the latter two movies and in the midst of the pandemic, Wheatley wrote, directed and edited In the Earth. Filmed over three weeks and with a tiny budget, this returns Wheatley to his folk horror roots but with limited success…
Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) is a scientist who arrives at a government controlled outpost in a forest on the outskirts of Bristol with the intention of researching crop efficiency. Upon arrival, he pairs up with Alma (Ellora Torchia) and the two of them head into the depths of the forest. They soon encounter Zach (Reece Shearsmith) a seemingly amiable but odd forest dweller who provides them with shelter and warmth. Things soon take a dark turn, however, and Martin and Alma find themselves teaming up with Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires) – another scientist.
Considering the obvious budget and time restrictions that Wheatley was working under to make this movie, it’s perhaps surprising just how good the first 40 minutes or so is. Fry has become typecast as a bumbling but likeable protagonist in recent years but only because he plays the role so well. Predictably, it is Shearsmith who provides the film’s best moments, combining typical British hospitality with rural eccentricity and an air of menace. Indeed, the middle sequence of In the Earth feels like a particularly effective Inside No. 9 episode and the film suffers badly in the third act when Shearsmith is mostly replaced by Hayley Squires. Now, I’m a fan of Squires and her work but she struggles with the posh accent she has been given here and the attempt to hark back to the hallucinogenic madness of A Field in England falls flat. While the visuals and sound design are suitably atmospheric, the incoherent plot and nothing burger ending ensure that the film finishes with a whimper rather than a bang.
As a pandemic curio, In the Earth is probably worth seeking out. It has some interesting ideas and an excellent supporting performance from Shearsmith but the final execution is undoubtedly lacking.