In the Earth

People get funny in the wood sometimes

Directed by Ben Wheatley

United Kingdom, 2021

It had to happen eventually … a film that brought us to blows. Well not quite, but this week’s film certainly led to a difference of opinion – divisive would be an understatement. But isn’t that why cinema is so vital? So welcome to a Tale of Two Reviews.

Ben Wheatley shot In the Earth over the course of 15 days in a wood outside of London. The date was August 2020 so we were in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. After an opening scene where a person unknown breaks a rock and plants the fragments in soil we join botanist Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) as he arrives at an isolated rangers’ outpost.

Wheatley himself describes the film as a response to the pandemic and the drama starts with social distancing, a lot of disinfectant being splashed about, and everyone has an N95 mask though usually worn under the chin … cinema verité. There’s talk of lockdown procedures and the third wave, but Martin comes armed with a plan to reunite with his former colleague (and lover?) Dr Wendle who is somewhere out there in the forest, working on research into mycorrhizal fungi.

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Mycorrhizal fungi: white filaments that grow underground forming symbiotic relationships with the roots of plants, and effectively connecting different species within a forest or a field through a massive, expansive web … a Wood Wide Web

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So Martin sets off into the wood with his guide Alma but not before he is introduced to the local legend, Parnag Fegg, a tale of an ancient eldritch spirit that controls the forest. An indication, perhaps, that things are not quite as they seem. And on their second day on the trail it all starts to go awry. While in their tents Martin and Alma are beaten unconscious by a person unknown (see above), who has a penchant for stealing hiking boots. Dazed and confused, they stumble across lone woodsman Zach - Reece Shearsmith channeling a hybrid of Bear Grylls and Billy Connolly – who comes to their aid. Fortunately he happens to have boots-aplenty. Needless to say this is only the beginning of their travails and we will go on to meet Martin’s old flame, Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), and perhaps old Parnag Fegg herself.

So to start, it’s clear that Ben Wheatley has an eye for visual flair. He knows how to use colour – bold reds and greens – on the cinema screen and there are some exquisite shots of, would you believe, fungi discharging spores that would sit well with David Attenborough’s Private Life of Plants.

In the Earth does promise a lot: though the name of the virus is never mentioned the wariness as the film opens is spot on. The team’s anxiety feels genuine and they do a good job of selling that post-lockdown sense of burnout. But once Martin and Alma (ably played by Ellora Torchia, who was also in Midsommar … she really needs to get away from these nature-loving cultists) set off into the forest any expectation of a considered approach to the neuroses engendered by life in the shadow of the virus is swiftly abandoned for a slasher movie mash up of the Blair Witch Project and Alex Garland’s Annihilation. The horror movie tropes were hackneyed, predictable, and often laughable. A tent peg going into Zach’s eye was a clear nod to Mackenzie Crook and the fork in Pirates of the Caribbean.

A looming stone monolith pops up repeatedly just to emphasise that we are deep in pagan-rites world here but the filmmakers eventually run out of ideas so launch us into a Nic Cage-style pseudo-psychedelic blowout. Dr Wendle straps on a pair of headphones over a soundboard and we are subjected to flashing strobe lights and a shrieking soundtrack but no, even the Druidic DJ can’t distract us from the emptiness at the heart of this film. The closing credits were great though.

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I literally could not tolerate looking at the screen – it made me feel ill. Aesthetically painful – J*

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On the other hand … In the Earth establishes itself as a cornerstone of folk horror – a genre that quintessentially draws on the ancient traditions of ritual, nature and magic in the history of Britain and its woodland. It speaks to man’s relationship to the environment. Ben Wheatley’s filmic style, as seen before in Kill List and High Rise, is indirect and jilted. There is no regular narrative stream but rather, it is scattered in chunks through the dialogue, editing and imagery: you never get the complete picture.

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I love how coded the dialogue is … characters will make passing remarks which on closer reflection contain layers of meaning - N

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The way the film unspools is deliberately aggravating, provocative, and jarring – it stings. What Wheatley achieves, we think, is to transcendentalise the theme of Nature as a capricious and cosmic force through his use of sound and vision. The usual clichés are cast aside here with In the Earth as we encounter the ‘Real’ of Nature. Alma has a profound experience, seeing something true, and being overwhelmed by it; the film serves as a great depiction of existential terror.

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Sometimes someone wants to amputate your foot and because they are shouting you are too polite to say no - C

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Though some plot strands are predictable, in a sense that’s beside the point because it’s clear that although you know what is going to happen, so it seems do the lead characters, but the important question is why they cannot change their actions: is it a matter of free will? The pacing and editing works to terrific effect, and the narrative is driven by a guttural, gutsy soundtrack that leaves you feeling that you really are stuck in the woods.

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Brilliant, an instant classic! – N

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Reids’ Results (out of 100)

C - 77

T - 77

N - 82

S - 43

J* - 39

*special guest (see The Wolf begets a Wolf)

Well, there you have it. We’ll be back next week when hopefully we’ll be speaking to each other. Thank you for reading Reids on Film. If you enjoyed our review please share with a friend and do leave a comment.

Coming next … The Young and the Damned(1950)