''In the Earth'' (stylized as ''IN THE EⱯRTH'') is a 2021
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
psychological horror film
Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequently overlaps with the related subgen ...
written and directed by
Ben Wheatley. The film stars
Joel Fry,
Reece Shearsmith
Reeson Wayne "Reece" Shearsmith (born 27 August 1969) is an English actor, writer and comedian. He is best known for being a member of ''The League of Gentlemen'', alongside Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. With Pemberton, he lat ...
,
Hayley Squires
Hayley Squires (born 16 April 1988) is an English actress and playwright, best known for her work in the Ken Loach film ''I, Daniel Blake''. Squires has also appeared in ''Call the Midwife'' (2012), '' Southcliffe'' (2013), ''Complicit'' (2013), ...
,
Ellora Torchia,
John Hollingworth and
Mark Monero
Mark Monero (born 1968) is a British actor and musician. He has had various roles including parts in ''Babylon'', ''Wilt'', ''Prayer for the Dying'', ''Sid and Nancy'' and remains best known for his role as Steve Elliot in the BBC soap opera '' ...
.
''In the Earth'' had its world premiere at the
2021 Sundance Film Festival
The 2021 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 28 to February 3, 2021. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 15, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Utah, the festival combined in-person screenings at the Ray ...
on 29 January 2021, was released in the United States on 16 April 2021, by
Neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...
.
Plot
Martin Lowery is a scientist sent to a government-controlled outpost while an unspecified pandemic has ravaged the country. The outpost is located in an unusually fertile forested area outside
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
to help in the studies and experiments of his former colleague and ex-lover Olivia Wendle regarding using
mycorrhiza
A mycorrhiza (from Greek μύκης ', "fungus", and ῥίζα ', "root"; pl. mycorrhizae, mycorrhiza or mycorrhizas) is a symbiotic association between a fungus and a plant. The term mycorrhiza refers to the role of the fungus in the plant ...
to increase crop efficiency. After passing a physical examination and meeting his park guide Alma, he learns of the local legend of Parnag Fegg, a woodland spirit. The following morning, Martin and Alma begin their two-day hike toward Olivia's site.
Alma informs Martin that Olivia has not been heard from in months. The pair come across an abandoned tent, with the remaining items indicating it belonged to a family. The next night, Martin discovers a rash on his arm before he and Alma are assaulted by unknown assailants who also raid their camp, destroy their equipment, steal their shoes, and loot some of their supplies. Without his shoes, Martin badly cuts his foot.
They are approached by Zach, a man living in the woods who offers to lend the pair some shoes. Taking them to his own campsite, Zach disinfects and stitches Martin's wound and gives them both food and a drink. Martin and Alma begin to lose consciousness and realize they have been sedated. While they are unconscious, Zach takes ritualistic photos of them in strange clothes and positions and stitches a strange symbol and animal gut into Martin's arm.
Upon waking up Zach describes the symbol as a mark to be seen by a presence in the woods, claimed by him to have once been an ancient sorcerer who placed his essence in a
standing stone
A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright rock (geology), stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. T ...
somewhere in the forest. Martin's foot becomes infected from his injury and Zach sloppily amputates some of his toes with a hatchet.
Alma acquires a discarded blade to free herself and Martin before attacking Zach. Martin and Alma flee, but become separated. Zach pursues Martin, who stumbles across a pair of bodies, presumed to be the owners of the abandoned camp. After encountering the standing stone, Martin is found and rescued by Olivia. Alma independently makes her way to the camp, and Zach is driven away by the amplified sound and lights set up around Olivia's site.
The next morning, Olivia cauterizes Martin's foot as she explains her project. She reveals that Zach is her ex-husband, and that the pair were following the directions of a centuries-old book on local legends. He had been helping her to try and communicate with the presence inside the stone, using the lights and noises from an electronic soundboard, but disapproved of her approach and left. Unable to trust Olivia and fearing that Zach is still after them, Alma tries to convince Martin that they need to leave, but he will not be drawn on the nature of his relationship with Olivia and she refuses to abandon her research.
The next morning, the site is surrounded by a thick mist containing fungal spores, trapping them. They send Alma through the mist in a hazmat suit, but the spores make it through her protective clothing and subject her to horrifying visions. That night, the mist continues to close in on the site as Zach arrives, telling them to communicate with the standing stone using the sounds and lights as well as to consume a "sacrament," a mixture of ground mushrooms alluded to in the book.
Martin agrees to drink the sacrament and waits for it to take effect. Zach ambushes Alma and prepares to sacrifice Martin. Alma makes her way back to camp, where she finds Olivia in her tent surrounded by staged photographs of her and Zach's victims. Olivia attacks Alma, but she fends her off. Zach hears their struggle and rushes back to camp, where Alma kills him. She then pursues Olivia back to the standing stone as the mist overtakes the camp, and they are all subjected to more visions from the spores.
By morning, Alma and Olivia suddenly find themselves far from the stone, broken out from their trances. Olivia, overcome with awe, collapses on the ground. Alma then approaches a waking Martin by the stone and, speaking with a distorted voice, she offers to guide him out of the woods.
Cast
*
Joel Fry as Martin Lowery
*
Reece Shearsmith
Reeson Wayne "Reece" Shearsmith (born 27 August 1969) is an English actor, writer and comedian. He is best known for being a member of ''The League of Gentlemen'', alongside Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. With Pemberton, he lat ...
as Zach
*
Hayley Squires
Hayley Squires (born 16 April 1988) is an English actress and playwright, best known for her work in the Ken Loach film ''I, Daniel Blake''. Squires has also appeared in ''Call the Midwife'' (2012), '' Southcliffe'' (2013), ''Complicit'' (2013), ...
as Olivia Wendle
*
Ellora Torchia as Alma
*
John Hollingworth as James
*
Mark Monero
Mark Monero (born 1968) is a British actor and musician. He has had various roles including parts in ''Babylon'', ''Wilt'', ''Prayer for the Dying'', ''Sid and Nancy'' and remains best known for his role as Steve Elliot in the BBC soap opera '' ...
as Frank
Production
In September 2020,
Ben Wheatley announced that he had written and directed a horror film over the course of 15 days in August. In November 2020, it was announced that the cast included
Joel Fry,
Ellora Torchia,
Hayley Squires
Hayley Squires (born 16 April 1988) is an English actress and playwright, best known for her work in the Ken Loach film ''I, Daniel Blake''. Squires has also appeared in ''Call the Midwife'' (2012), '' Southcliffe'' (2013), ''Complicit'' (2013), ...
and
Reece Shearsmith
Reeson Wayne "Reece" Shearsmith (born 27 August 1969) is an English actor, writer and comedian. He is best known for being a member of ''The League of Gentlemen'', alongside Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. With Pemberton, he lat ...
, and that
Neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...
was set to distribute in the United States.
Clint Mansell
Clinton Darryl Mansell (; born 7 January 1963) is an English musician, singer, and composer, born in Coventry. He served as the lead singer and multi-instrumentalist of alt-rock band Pop Will Eat Itself before embarking on a career as a film s ...
, who has worked with the director Ben Wheatley in his previous films, composed the film score.
Lakeshore Records
Lakeshore Entertainment Group, LLC is an American independent film production, finance, and former international sales and distribution company founded in 1994 by Tom Rosenberg and Ted Tannebaum (1933–2002). Lakeshore Entertainment is headquart ...
&
Invada Records
Geoffrey Paul Barrow (born 9 December 1971) is an English music producer, composer, and DJ. He is a member of the bands Portishead, Beak and supergroup Quakers, and has scored several films.
Portishead—formed in 1991—was named after the s ...
has released the soundtrack.
''In the Earth'' was then released on
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
and
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
on 25 October 2021 by
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Video, MCA/Universal Home Video, MCA Home Video, MCA Videodisc and MCA Videocassette, Inc.) is the home video distribution division of Am ...
(through
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment) in the UK.
Release
The film had its premiere at the
2021 Sundance Film Festival
The 2021 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 28 to February 3, 2021. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 15, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Utah, the festival combined in-person screenings at the Ray ...
on January 29, 2021,
and was released in theatres on April 16, 2021.
It was released on
video on demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...
on May 7, 2021.
Critical response
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 170 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "''In The Earth''s bleak kaleidoscope of horror is a meditation on the residual pandemic fears that haunt humanity." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''.
Early life and education
Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...
of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' gave the film a score of 4/5 stars, writing that it "brings us back to Wheatley’s classic world of occult loopy weirdness and cult Britmovie seediness, with a new topical dimension of pandemic paranoia".
Mark Kermode
Mark James Patrick Kermode (, ; ; born 2 July 1963) is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter and podcaster. He is the chief film critic for ''The Observer'', contributes to the magazine ''Sight & Sound'', prese ...
also gave the film a score of 4/5 stars in his review for ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'', saying that it "combines humour and horror in terrifically bamboozling fashion, not least during a gruellingly extended amputation sequence that will have you squirming, laughing and wincing all at once." Linda Marric of ''
The Jewish Chronicle
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
'' also gave the film a score of 4/5 stars, describing it as "a brilliantly imagined, well acted and thoroughly compelling offering from a writer-director who is a cut above the rest when it comes to small scale horror productions."
Clarisse Loughrey of ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' gave the film a score of 3/5 stars, writing: "''In the Earth'' is a horror film with razor-sharp teeth, even if the relative flimsiness behind that facade betrays its spur-of-the-moment inception." Robbie Collin of ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' gave the film a score of 5/5 stars, describing it as "an outrageously entertaining film that feels utterly rooted in the bleak era in which it was made." Barry Hertz of ''
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'' wrote: "While I hope to never, ever watch ''In the Earth'' again, I must admit to admiring parts of it, too", and praised the film's use of dark humour.
Matt Zoller Seitz
Matt Zoller Seitz (born December 26, 1968) is an American film and television critic, author and film-maker.
Career
Matt Zoller Seitz is editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com, and the television critic for '' New York'' magazine and Vulture.com, as ...
of ''
RogerEbert.com
''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times' ...
'' gave the film a score of 3/4 stars, writing: "Even though some sections feel rushed and it falls apart at the end, every part of it is memorable."
Michael O'Sullivan of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' was more critical of the film, giving it a score of 1.5/4 stars. He wrote that the film's setting "reads more like a peaceful suburban park than the “hostile environment” of the forest primeval it’s described as", and added: "the film has nothing interesting to say about pandemics." Randy Myers of ''
The Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...
'' gave the film a score of 2/4 stars, writing: "While it lacks the thematic punch of
en Wheatley's''
High Rise
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdictio ...
'', ''Earth'' deserves points for originality, but grows wobbly by its end." Kevin Maher of ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' gave the film a score of 2/5 stars, describing it as ending with "a prolonged blast of rapid-fire psychedelia that seemed like an outrageous narrative cop out."
''Dread Corps'', a UK-based horror website, also gave ''In the Earth'' a more critical review with a rating of 43/100, stating: "''In the Earth'' fails to leave a lasting impression and fails to reach its full potential, particularly from such a talented director and cast".
References
External links
*
{{Ben Wheatley
2021 films
2021 horror films
Films set in 2021
American horror films
British horror films
Neon (company) films
Films directed by Ben Wheatley
Films scored by Clint Mansell
Folk horror films
Films about the COVID-19 pandemic
2020s English-language films
2020s American films
2020s British films