In a time when critical analysis of each director’s new works remains defined by the auteur theory, Ben Wheatley’s career-long embrace of being a “director for hire” is a fascinating anomaly. His early stretch of films signalled the arrival of a filmmaker interested in embodying more typically heightened genres with a sense of downtrodden Britishness, where dark comedies about serial killers and paranoid horror films can still possess the earthy kitchen sink realism of Mike Leigh or Shane Meadows. But Wheatley made a point to highlight that, as a director, his job was to direct — and unlike other filmmakers, he felt comfortable talking about shooting insurance commercials, or random episodes of cable TV sitcoms. His unusual disdain for film critics seems less to do with the notices he receives so much as the attempts to analyse his work through the lens of auteur theory, when he has acknowledged the role of the director is as much of a job as it is an art.

This is why Wheatley’s impromptu “stripped down” films, shot quickly in-between larger projects, are now his most rewarding. Sandwiched in-between a stale adaptation of Rebecca that was immediately lost to the Netflix algorithm and his next project (which at the time of writing, is a sequel to Jason Statham giant shark movie The Meg), In the Earth retreads familiar ground for the filmmaker, shifting the hallucinogenic paranoia of A Field in England to the post-Covid age. But rather than feeling like a stale retreat to a comfort zone, it’s something of a rejuvenation; a return to Wheatley’s earlier genre interests, in which his voice isn’t getting stifled under the demands of the material. To write off In the Earth as a retread of A Field in England may seem tempting from the outside, but this is a deliriously entertaining companion piece that could make one question why a filmmaker with so much personality keeps retreating to projects where he has to hide all traces of it.

After four months in lockdown, Dr. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) has left isolation to join a research project. However, upon arriving, he’s told that his superior’s site is located a two day’s walk away in the middle of the forest, with no alternative manner of getting there. Alongside Alma (Ellora Torchia), he embarks on the journey, and things immediately go from bad to worse — the pair are attacked in the middle of the night, and quickly come into contact with Zac (Reece Shearsmith), a mysterious figure who has illegally set up camp in the vast woodland. He initially helps nurse Zac back to health after a foot injury, but reveals he has ulterior motives that may or may not relate to a grander mythology within the secluded woodland.

In the Earth differs from other films in the first wave of post-Covid horror by not using the pandemic as a source of exploitative shocks. Instead, Wheatley directly grapples with the anxieties people have faced during lockdown, rather than extrapolate on widespread fears; the film’s quietest moments feature characters ruminating on whether we will adapt back to an old normal, the pandemic not being used as window dressing but as an accepted reality for audiences. It doesn’t feel like a “lockdown movie,” but rather one that has adapted to fit the modern world, knowing that an event this seismic isn’t something we can pretend never happened. Yes, much like the recent film Songbird, Wheatley’s film does reference a devastating future wave that badly hits the country — but it doesn’t mine this for misery, so much as ground the film in the here and now. In modern Britain, this doesn’t exactly feel like a science fiction dystopia.

In fact, the most surprising thing about In the Earth may be just how much of a return it is to the pitch black humour that characterised Wheatley’s earliest films. The film’s middle stretch plays out with a macabre sense of slapstick, as Fry’s protagonist is increasingly put through the wringer via various drug-induced surgeries that are performed like broad comic set pieces. Shearsmith, who plays a grounded variant of the type of psychopathic character he rose to fame playing in The League of Gentlemen, is naturally well suited to this material, as he might be the only actor capable of transforming a gruesome amputation sequence into something approaching a vaudevillian set piece, making the director’s tonal hire wire act feel effortless. 

This might be why In the Earth isn’t quite as satisfying when it leans into its distinct blend of folk horror and paranoid science fiction, wit its dense, disorienting mythology feeling like a come down after the drug induced highs of the second act. Which isn’t to say In the Earth ever loses its way, but rather the more heady blend of scientific experimentation, folklore and psychedelia is a less easy pill to swallow. The only real criticism is that the director’s return to woozy, magic eye visual sequences is the only aspect that feels like diminishing returns from A Field in England, whereas the rest stands as a singular work, despite its clear companion piece status. If appreciated purely as “Cinema,” eschewing narrative concerns to be fully embraced for the trip that it is, then In the Earth is a triumph. It’s just hard not to wish Wheatley could have maintained the pure entertainment factor of the second act.

Alistair Ryder (@YesitsAlistair) has been writing about film and TV for nearly five years at Film Inquiry, Gay Essential and The Digital Fix. He’s also a member of GALECA (the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association), and once interviewed Woody Harrelson, which he will probably tell you about extensively, whether you want to hear about it or not.