Mark Reviews Movies: IN THE EARTH

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 15, 2021

While writer/director Ben Wheatley's In the Earth is set during a pandemic (and was made during our current one), that's not really the central narrative or thematic thrust of this movie. A deadly disease gets our characters where they need to be, in a remote place and in a situation with no real hope for any help from the outside world. After that, Wheatley veers to and fro in terms of what his discomforting, often grisly story actually has to say.

The effect of this movie, which sees various characters going mad—or, perhaps, only appearing to do so—from periods of isolation and a permeating sense of hopelessness, is much greater than any story it has to tell. There are upsetting scenes of the implications of what a lonely man has done in his secluded insanity, horrifying scenes of necessary medical procedures (performed with makeshift tools and supplies) and unnecessary "surgery," and sequences of terror as a madman with a bow and an axe hunts our helpless protagonists.

That, though, is not really what this movie is about, either, and by the time Wheatley arrives at his ambiguous climax, we're not entirely certain if the filmmaker has a clear idea as to what his story is or what he wants to say about it. The experience is a creepy and unsettling one, for sure, but it's not quite enough to justify Wheatley's rambling plot and hodgepodge of ideas.

A pandemic has devastated the globe, and Martin (Joel Fry), a scientist from the city who has spent months in quarantine, has arrived at a lodge in the middle of a forest. He's here to check up on the progress and condition of a fellow scientist, with whom he had some kind of romantic entanglement. She, working deep in the woods on a mysterious project, hasn't been heard from in a while.

Martin goes through a series of medical tests (Some of them, such as a long swab up the nose, will be familiar in our current situation) under a lot of safety protocols (masks, social distancing, and lots of disinfectant), and after he has been cleared, the scientist heads out into the forest with Alma (Ellora Torchia), a forest ranger, for the two-day hike to the unaccounted-for scientist's camp. Our scientist protagonist isn't quite prepared for the physical activity, and neither he nor the ranger is prepared for what they find in the woods.

An abandoned campsite suggests a missing family. While sleeping, Martin and Alma are attacked by an unknown person, who steals their shoes. A barefoot Martin steps on something, ripping a deep cut in the sole of his foot.

Help appears to arrive in the person of Zach (Reece Shearsmith), who has been living alone in the forest for a considerable time. He seems nice, stitching Martin's foot and offering the two shoes, food, and a special drink he has concocted from flowers. Obviously, that impression doesn't last for long.

There is some genuine terror in this section of the movie, as Zach's intentions becomes clearer, even as his actual motive remains something of a mystery. Martin and Alma are trapped in a helpless condition, and Shearsmith's performance, which keeps Zach quiet and calm and polite until the climax of this particular segment, serves as a disturbing juxtaposition to the character's actions. For his part, Wheatley stages and paces the horror of this section with considerable, sickening skill. One scene, involving Martin's foot and an axe, plays with timing and editing with such precision and a subversion of expectations that it's almost darkly amusing. The anticipation of what's to come and the off-the-rhythm payoff of the scene, though, make it anything but funny.

There is, though, a lot of story and, indeed, an entirely different story remaining after the protagonists' unwanted stay with the stranger. We eventually meet the missing scientist. She's Olivia (Hayley Squires), who gives Martin and Alma some background information on Zach and provides some explanation of what has driven him to madness (She also gives Martin's poor foot one final ordeal to endure). The rest of the plot has to do with the enigmatic divide and possible connection between science and the supernatural. Olivia is convinced that the forest is capable of communication and that a mysterious stone, not found on any map and only referenced in an old book on witchcraft, is the key to talking back with nature.

Wheatley, who takes us through at least three different core ideas for this story, never finds a way to bridge the ever-widening gap between these disparate plots. They're all connected, in a very broad way, by ideas about humanity's relationship with the natural world (What is a pandemic, if not nature's way of showing us how little we understand about it and ourselves?) and how isolation can so affect one's mind. They're distressingly tantalizing concepts, for certain, but Wheatley's story eventually becomes too bogged down in a mythology it wants to retain as a mystery—and doesn't quite seem to understand in the first place.

The third act of In the Earth, then, feels like a series of shortcuts, in terms of explaining its story, giving us tangible threats, and, thanks to some hallucinogenic mushrooms, sidestepping any real clarification with some kaleidoscopic montages. By the end, we're left more confounded than distressed.

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