In the Earth

I watch a lot of bad movies. But every once in a while a movie comes along that makes me so angry. A movie that makes me wonder who made it and what were they thinking?

I like weird movies. I like smart, deep and ambitious movies. But this movie is straight nonsense. Utter madness. It's an attempt to be weird and different and out-there without any effort in grounding it in any logic. All abstract with nothing concrete to hold onto. Pretentious to the max.

During this movie, I asked myself the following questions. What is this even about? Can we move forward or have any kind of story progression? What is the point of all this madness? Why is this movie still going? Why am I still watching this? Is there even the slightest chance there will be something redeeming at the end if I wait it out? (No!)

The only things I liked were the cinematography, the atmosphere and a few practical effects. But my anger wouldn't allow me to give this 2 stars. (1 viewing, 1/23/2022)

Great idea, executed poorly.

I'd like to think the jarring and choppy way the dialogue was written, was intentional, giving the first half of the film an uncomfortable thriller air about it.

We were totally on-board with this weird ride, with the proviso that there would actually be some pay off at the end, where unfortunately there was not.

Mild spoilers: Like many others have said, the film goes downhill once the pair escape their tormentor. The use of lights and sound could have been effective but they were over used, making it impossible for most, to actually look at the screen for a larger portion of the 3rd act. Then there is simply no ending, with so much build up, this just leaves you feeling unsatisfied.

In the Earth can feel dull at times and it's lack of answers is extremely unsatisfying but it has enough individual parts that work to make it a good and unique horror movie. Joel Fry, Reece Shearsmith and Ellora Torchia all give great performances. There are some extremely disturbing moments and oddly funny parts. Ben Wheatley's direction is really good even if some of his stylistic choices really don't work. The music by Clint Mansell is amazing.

I was pretty stoked for this movie after seeing the trailer. Figured it'd be a solid arthouse horror picture a la A24 type deal. This is coming from a guy who mostly prefers the B stuff but i enjoy me a good arthouse indie flick now and again.

But gee the two main characters were so flat and boring. Like, they couldn't add banter? Find interesting things to talk about while traveling through the woods. I miss the days in horror, and maybe this still happens from time to time, where characters have these very interesting attributes. An example, in del toros chronos, ron pearlman's character was obsessed with the size of his nose and getting a nose job. It was such an interesting tid bit. In this film there was none of that. The characters just flatly said things that were part of the plot. No banter. No conversations. Just "this is why i'm here". "this is what i'm doing". "why are you doing this?" "oh that's why".

Then a bunch of weird plot stuff, indecision in what the movie is supposed to be. Wicked cool trippy cinematography type stuff that was completely ruined by the entire plot of the movie. A bad explanation about why everything is the way it is.

Also the movie alludes to some kind of quarantine at the beginning. Not the one we're in rn i don't believe. But i think the writer thought that this would give it an air of mystery and apocalyptic dread. I think a movie like Monster, a sorta apocalyptic monster film that sorta followed a few people roaming through the forests did this concept well. In The Earth, however, did not. Just felt meaningless and pointless and was just an excuse for non-dialogue that thes indie filmmakers like so much.

The last 20 minutes was kinda coool. But not worth what you put into it. I really wanted to walk out of this one.

When I read the synopsis for this 2021 movie, I have to admit that I was intrigued and the plot sounded interesting. And with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I found the time to sit down to watch writer and director's Ben Wheatley movie.

Well, I managed to suffer through just under one hour of the ordeal that is otherwise known as "In the Earth", then I just threw the towel into the ring and gave up. This movie was so unfathomably boring and pointless. And I have to say that you have to forget everything you read in the synopsis, because it plays absolutely no real part in the actual movie.

The events that took place through the hour that I suffered through just had nothing to offer in terms of entertainment, and needless to say that the storyline was just so abysmal and boring that no matter what transpired on the screen it just wasn't sufficient to alleviate for the shortcomings of the movie.

The plot was boring and pointless, and so were the characters. Sure, they had gotten some good actors and actresses for the movie, but the error here was that the performers had nothing solid to work with in terms of script and characters. Reece Shearsmith - playing Zach - really carried the movie with his performance, though he could only do so much to salvage the train wreck that is "In the Earth".

Visually then "In the Earth" is a strange movie, and I assume that if you are high on mushrooms or some kind of psychedelics' then you will probably enjoy the odd visuals that permeate the movie. But if you sit down to watch a proper horror movie, then "In the Earth" was just a massive swing and a miss.

Even with having watched an hour of this movie, I sat there with a feeling of 'is this really it?' and 'what a waste of my time this was' as I got up to end the torment.

This is definitely not a movie that I will recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this ordeal in full or parts so you don't have to.

My rating of the 2021 movie "In the Earth" lands on a massively disappointing three out of ten stars.