We might not be able to return to cinemas just yet, but Ben Wheatley’s new pandemic-inspired horror movie, In The Earth, is going to be first on our list of things to watch when we can. The movie, inspired by and shot during the coronavirus outbreak, is a real life imitating art situation (or the other way around, we can’t decide). The first trailer, released today, is already giving us the heebie-jeebies.
The movie tells the tale of a world facing a pandemic that’s led the population to wear face masks (sound familiar?), but dangers more sinister than a virus are lurking in the shadows. Joel Fry and Ellora Torchia take the lead roles as a scientist and a park scout who are sent out to search for some missing people in the woods, and are quickly set upon by evil forces which strip them of their sanity. “Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them,” the movie’s synopsis promises. Fun!
Also starring Hayley Squires and Reece Shearsmith, In The Earth, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is set to be released on 30 April, which is a pretty swift turnaround when you consider it was inspired by lockdown and created entirely in the past year. Even more impressive? The whole thing was shot in just 15 days.
“I wanted to make a film that was contextualised in the moment,” filmmaker Ben Wheatley says in the press notes for the movie. “Movies I was seeing that had been made but released during the pandemic felt very old-fashioned. No one is talking about what has just happened.
“COVID is going to mark a generation. It felt like making a film in 1946 and not referencing the fact that everyone had just gone through the second world war. I wanted to make something that would be immediate. To talk about this moment. I wanted to make something about the experience I was having right now. And I think that is what horror cinema should be. It takes the moment that we are living in and puts it into a genre.”
Watch the trailer for In The Earth here: