Horror logo

Movie Review: 'In the Earth'

Horror movie 'In the Earth' lacks a touch of humanity.

By Sean PatrickPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
Like

To say I didn’t care for director Ben Wheatley’s take on Alfred Hitchcock’s incredible masterpiece, Rebecca, would be an understatement. Not only did I write a lengthy negative review, I then wrote a second scathing take on the movie in the form of a numbered list of everything wrong with the movie. So yeah, me and Ben Wheatley are not on the same page. I felt the same wearying feeling about his breakthrough feature Free Fire starring Brie Larson, though I wasn’t inspired to chronicle my disdain as I did with Rebecca.

Wheatley’s new movie is called In the Earth and while he’s tried to be Hitchcock and Tarentinoin the past, his attempt to ape the style of Ari Aster in In The Earth delivers Wheatley's most interesting failure yet. In the Earth is a low budget horror movie set in a forest haunted by some ancient evil. Midsommar co-star Ellora Torchia, co-stars here and furthers the Midsommar homage as a forest guide while Joel Fry lumbers through the movie as the novice botanist she is guiding.

Martin Lowery (Fry) is not the outdoors type. Despite being a botanist, Martin is more of a house cat, preferring his work indoors, in a lab, rather than in nature. However, when his boss, colleague and former lover, Professor Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), cuts off communication while performing research in the middle of the woods, Martin volunteers to go find her and re-establish communication with the Professor.

Complicating matters is a global pandemic that has closed most of the world and left Martin locked down for the past several months. This trip to the woods is the first time Martin has left his flat in several months and it’s fair to say that he is not remotely prepared for this journey. Leading Martin on his journey is a forest guide named Alma (Torchia). Alma sizes up Martin pretty quickly but she figures it will be a short trip and she’s not too worried about his less than peak abilities. .

Unfortunately, what should be a quick trip turns into an endurance test when the two are attacked in the middle of the night in their tents. Knocked unconscious, the two wake up to find all of their supplies stolen along with their shoes. This is an important detail as the opening credits have shown us a rock being shattered by a hammer and the sharp, jagged edges of the rock are placed on the ground under piles of grass and leaves.

Chekhov’s sharp rock is established and thus must cut and poor Martin becomes the victim. In a scene of very effective body horror, Martin suffers a horrific cut and we are forced to see it. The horror and viscera of the cut lingers as Martin and Alma are seemingly rescued by a man hiding in the woods. Zach appears to be a survivalist and claims to have abandoned the city for the forest to get away from people and the pandemic.

Zach takes Alma and Martin to his makeshift camp but right away things appear shady. Zach’s camp is made up of a number of different tents. He also happens to have plenty of spare shoes, pairs that fit both Martin and Alma. How did he get these things? Zach, naturally, is a bad guy, a wacky nut who claims that he’s using art and nature to commune with a malevolent, unseen force in the woods known as Parnag Fegg.

Zach also has a secret connection with Professor Wendle but I will leave you to discover the nature of that connection. As for the malevolent force in the forest, Parnag Fegg, it’s unclear if Parnag Fegg is an actual, physical presence or merely a manifestation of forest energy that can incapacitate humans via sound and scent. Zach and Dr Wendle each have different opinions and approaches to Parnag Fegg, spiritual vs science, while poor Martin and Alma are caught in the middle.

The strength of In the Earth is body horror. Ben Wheatley has a talent for squicky, bloody, hard to look at body horror. There is Martin’s stomach turning foot injury, Zach’s quease inducing approach to sewing Martin’s foot, and the other surgeries that Zach performs on the notion that he is saving Martin’s life. Wheatley has a strong talent for visual storytelling and even in something as awful as Rebecca, the visuals were lush and memorable and the same applies to In the Earth.

The positives out of the way, let’s get to what doesn’t work which is nearly everything else. In the Earth is a pandemic-sploitation movie, though on the subtle end of the spectrum of pandemic-sploitation. The virus in the movie is not named or explained but how characters deal with it, with masks and distancing and sterilization, is certainly a nod to our current way of life. These nods to our modern pandemic situation however, have little to do with the story being told in In the Earth.

The pandemic stuff feels tacked on to a very rote, one note, monster in the woods story. Wheatley’s talent is in visuals and that appears to be where he dedicated all his energy. This leaves a story that raises a lot of questions but lacks a coherent point. Much of the story of In the Earth flounders and none of the characters gain dimension or deepen the drama unfolding that gives the visual element something beyond mere spectacle.

Midsommar and Ari Aster is a clear influence on In the Earth but Ben Wheatley is no Aster. Where Aster is a visual master, he also gives weight and life to his characters that give a deeper meaning to the fantastic visual elements. There are no shocks for the sake of shock in Aster’s work, the visuals are intended to have an effect on those experiencing them and through those human and relatable characters, we become even more deeply affected by what we see.

In the Earth lacks those involving qualities, those qualities that draw us in and make the shocks more shocking because we care about the people being shocked. In the Earth is in theaters this weekend, April 16th, 2021, and will soon be available for streaming rental following the theatrical release.

movie review
Like

About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.