Once the spectacle of Parnag Fegg, and Olivia’s experimentations with it, take center stage, In the Earth is impossible to look away from. These effects are subtle at first, with sound design playing an important role in setting a spooky tone early on as strange birds whose calls have echoed through the forest suddenly go dead silent. Luckily, the psychedelic, disembodied power that rules the forest makes up for In the Earth’s lacking character work.
With characters that majoritively serve to comment on Parnag Fegg’s thematic relevance, it becomes increasingly important for that force to present in an engaging and entertaining way. Of course, the spores that Parnag Fegg doses the characters with throughout the film are helping with that work, too.
Hayley Squires’ Olivia is far more mercurial but, given the scientist’s role in the story only blossoms in the third act as the effects of Parnag Fegg become more severe, this helps with In the Earth’s march away from reality and into the cosmic. Shearsmith’s Zach in particular is a rather charming antagonist, whose naked and selfless desire to serve Parnag Fegg provides the only emotional stakes in the movie. Much more weight is given to the supporting characters, Zach and Olivia, and their opposing beliefs on how best to make contact with and please the spirit of the forest. Torchia’s Alma at least provides a tether to common sense, challenging the questionable logic of other characters most of the time, but Fry’s Martin is downright boring, his backstory and personal reasons for going after Olivia only passingly mentioned and to no consequential end. The weak protestations one character gives to having a gruesome procedure performed on themselves especially stand out, and that happens before Parnag Fegg really starts to go to work on their minds.įry and Torchia don’t have much chemistry to speak of, nor do their characters evolve much throughout. Martin and Alma’s relative ignorance towards Zach’s grim brand of hospitality belie maybe the only glaring issue that persists through In the Earth: Martin and Alma rarely seem to react proportionally to their increasingly horrifying and maddening circumstances. Martin and Alma don’t spend long in the woods before encountering a drifter, Zach (Reece Shearsmith), whose backwoods medical practices serve as a pretty big red flag that they pay little attention to. The forest is controlled by Parnag Fegg, an eldritch force which has beckoned all the players to the woods for reasons that never become entirely clear. From the opening shots of the movie, it’s clear that Martin and Alma are walking into circumstances that they just aren’t prepared for and survival skills have little to do with why. Park Ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) accompanies Martin, and once the two set out after Olivia, the pandemic setting fades from text into more of a thematic framework for the movie to operate within. Researcher Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) arrives at a national park to re-establish contact with his missing colleague, Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who’s supposed to be out in the forest investigating the land’s uncommonly fertile soil. Smartly, though, In the Earth doesn’t become bogged down in specifics, instead respecting that the viewer will bring their personal experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic to the table to fill in any blanks. While clearly more focused on providing a visceral experience than an emotional one, Wheatley’s return to horror is a Kubrickian descent into madness that gets progressively more engrossing as it builds towards its bonkers finale.Īppropriately, In the Earth is itself set during a pandemic that has taken a similar (probably worse) toll on the global population. Trouble is, the natural world engages right back and reminds us that there are forces out there that we can’t control or understand, no matter our motives.
After more than a year of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic keeping many of us trapped indoors for most of the time, director Ben Wheatley offers viewers a chance to engage with the natural world with In The Earth.