In the Earth: Art-house virus thriller plunges into its own variant of Heart of Darkness
By Thom Ernst
Rating: B
Director Ben Wheatley’s ecological thriller, In the Earth, might not be his first venture into the horror genre. But arguably, it is his first to effectively acknowledge horror conventionally.
Not to worry, the film isn’t overtly conventional; it’s still more art house than drive-in. And this is Wheatley. So, yeah, things get weird.
And though some might see this as Wheatley’s return to an earlier form, In the Earth is markedly different. Prior to this, Wheatley’s horror had a more marginal feel; his Kill List— a somewhat misshapen reminder of Wicker Man—is horror in premise, but less so in execution. And A Field in England, though categorized as horror, is more tangible as historical fiction (albeit a violent one).
In the Earth: There’s a pandemic cure in the woods. But you have to get past this guy.
But In the Earth takes a satisfying plunge into a variant of its own Heart of Darkness with an Annihilation chaser and Blair Witch possibilities.
Even at its most vicious— and In the Earth has moments of painful eye-clenching horror—the film is spun with humour that is unmistakably Wheatley. This is the sign of a director whose proclivity for the peculiar—and there’s no better example of Wheatley’s excess than in his muddled attempt to bring J G Ballard’s High-Rise to the screen—runs tip-toe towards the corner of high-brow and mainstream.
Wheatley, never one to let a zeitgeist pass by untouched, now extends his appetite for alchemy and paganism to the incendiary effects of isolation.
The world in In the Earth has been ravaged by a pandemic. People wear masks when in close quarters. They are quarantined until cleared of any threat that they might be carriers, and their conversations frequently turn to discussions about time spent in seclusion.
We presume In the Earth takes place in the future, but the answer ‘present day’ is also accepted.
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Martin Lowry (Joel Fry) arrives at a remote park where he last heard from fellow research scientist Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who claims to have made valuable inroads in the fight against the virus. But when communication abruptly ends, Martin hires a young park ranger, Alma (Ellora Torchia), to guide him on a search to find Dr. Wendle and her team.
Off into the woods, they go like lost children, unfazed by warnings of pagan creatures who snatch up schoolchildren and make waste of vagrant campers.
Were this film written by anyone other than Wheatley, Martin and Alma would squabble their way into a romance. And so convincingly appealing are Fry and Torchia as Martin and Alma that you might long for Wheatley to ditch any art-house tendency to contradict expectations and allow them their moment of affection.
But whatever romantic inklings Wheatley allows his characters, he is just as quick to disrupt. And the charm and likability Fry and Torchia so warmly introduce becomes a cruel set-up for something ugly.
And ugly happens when Martin and Alma stumble upon a lone woodsman named Zach (Reece Shearsmith). Sadly, it couldn’t happen to a more lovely couple.
Shearsmith gives an unnerving depiction of madness turned to villainy; Zach is an insidious foreboding force that ruminates between the calculated and the obscene. Once Zach is introduced, the film reaches a crescendo, perhaps too soon. From there, the movie dips and rises, firing off an arsenal of red flags, then leveling into stretches of the mundane before climbing back up and repeating.
But 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. It’s not like we’re going to go on IMDB and see his name attached as director on Meg 2.
Or is it?
In the Earth is directed by Ben Wheatley and stars Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Hayley Squires, and Reece Shearsmith. Opens across all digital and on-demand platforms on Friday, May 14.