The pandemic has inspired a number of movies examining humanity’s place in the aftermath of an extinction level reset. Right at the onset, those familiar with Ben Wheatley’s work best strap in for a heavily psychedelic assault with folk horror overtones: mixing pandemic and body horror into a fascinating experiment. This is a film that does not easily offer description or easy explanation, an arthaus film that will severely divide, and likely alienate the majority of audiences. Parts of this film are an attack on a majority of senses simultaneously, a combination of strobing sounds and nightmarish visuals that leave one staggering. Your mileage may vary as to personal psychedelic experiences, but Wheatley has certainly consumed the lions’s share, and likely enough for an entire pride, capable of conveying the associated disorientation, confusion, dissonance and an epileptic affront to every visual notion. The script borders nigh incomprehensible, but there are nuggets and notions of deeper concepts and understanding at play that may make sense to the more attentive and intuitive viewer. There are no real answers or closure, this is more akin to the boat ride in Willy Wonka, surreal, possibly nonsensical, but unnerving nonetheless. Only recommended for the more surrealistically inclined, but those who have followed the director’s body of work will find another example of the director’s triumph here. All others will likely loathe the ambiguity with a passion.
In the Earth (2021)