I expect future generations will come to look back on the Corona pandemic in the same way that we look back at one of the wars of the 20th century – and this will probably extend to making films about it, too (although whether any of those films will be as good as Soderbergh’s Contagion is of course another question). War movies tend to divide along the lines of whether they were made during or after whatever conflict they depict; the pandemic still technically being a going concern, no-one seems keen to address it as a story element directly so far. There’s also the fact that the coronavirus has the capacity to mess with film production in a way that most wars have never been able to.
One consequence of this is a selection of Corona-era films and TV shows that, regardless of their subject matter, have been inevitably influenced by the circumstances created by the virus – for example, M Night Shyamalan’s Old, which has nothing to do with the pandemic but mostly features a very limited cast list and a constrained, well-ventilated location. There have been others: some people seem to have relished the challenge of trying to assemble a functional movie despite the limitations of the lockdown period.
And one of these was Ben Wheatley, who seems to be in the process of trying to establish himself as a mainstream director – along with those of my friends who know Wheatley’s work, I was rather startled to see his name attached to a major blockbuster due out imminently – Wheatley is probably best known for a series of quirky, low-budget films, usually with an oppressive atmosphere and a sense of insidious, creeping madness. His next film is a sequel about Jason Statham having a fight with some giant prehistoric sharks. It will be interesting to see if any of Wheatley’s auteurishness survives in this setting.
His last film, however, was made mid-lockdown in a couple of weeks and is definitely what you’d expect from a Ben Wheatley film. It is called In the Earth and it concerns an agricultural scientist named Martin (Joel Fry) who arrives at a remote government-run outpost monitoring access to a large tract of forest; a lockdown is in progress to try and stop the spread of an unspecified virus. Martin is here to check out the research of a colleague, Olivia (Hayley Squires), who has been in the forest for quite some time investigating some odd fungal growths. It’s apparently a two day hike through the woods to the place where Olivia was last reported – Martin and his guide Alma (Ellora Torchia) set off, not without a sense of foreboding.
Sure enough, the signs become ominous: Alma reports that no-one has had direct contact with Olivia for months. They come across an abandoned tent. Mysterious attackers set upon them in the night, breaking gear and stealing their boots. Martin badly gashes his foot while trying to continue the journey. Help possibly arrives in the form of Zach (Reece Shearsmith), a rather eccentric man who has been living in the woods for some time. He takes them in and offers assistance.
However – and this may not come as a complete surprise – Zach is not quite the good samaritan he first appears to be, for he has his own intentions with regard to the duo. Quite apart from his horrific attempts at treating Martin’s foot, he seems be some kind of Pagan, worshipping a vaguely-described presence in the wood with different kinds of offerings. But what is he actually trying to do, and does it have any connection to Olivia and her research…?
People have slapped the folk-horror label on In the Earth almost reflexively – is it my imagination or are we living through a sort of folk-horror boom at the moment? – but I suppose it is justified given the primeval tone of much of the movie and the importance of ancient knowledge and traditions. It seems to me to be a sort of attempt to do a Nigel Kneale-ish SF-horror fusion, about an ancient sentience residing in the landscape (or features thereof) and responding to messages which are sent by methods which look very much like the rituals of witchcraft.
It takes a while for this to become fully apparent, though, and prior to this the film makes do with a sort of general sense of dread and anxiety, coupled to some icky gore – the film is most obviously a horror film for most of its length in the way it deals with Martin’s foot injury and the way it is handled, especially a sequence in which Zach announces the foot has become infected and will need extra treatment, hefting his axe as he does so. Wheatley gets the mixture of black comedy and visceral nastiness spot-on in what follows (Shearsmith is obviously in his element) and this is possibly the most memorable part of the film.
The film becomes increasingly more cryptic about what the characters are dealing with, and I was actually reminded of Phase IV, another story of scientists trying to deal with an alien intelligence operating through elements of the natural world. Suffice to say that it all gets a bit trippy towards the end, as it so often threatens to do in a Ben Wheatley film (for some reason one is inclined to imagine that the parties round at his and Amy Jump’s house are fairly spectacular), even if this means that the story gets a little bit unravelled.
Still, it’s an interesting and distinctive piece of genre cinema, not the most accomplished piece of folk-horror to come along in the last few years but still worth a look. I imagine that if you did look at it, unaware of the fact the whole thing was done in two weeks on a tiny budget, you would probably be less than entirely impressed – but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem that different to films like Sightseers, which Wheatley was making long before the virus came along. And it does feel distinctively Wheatleyesque in way that some of his attempts at mainstream success haven’t always been. A tribute to the talent and creativity of its makers, anyway.
No Chic. Just Geek. 