Welcome to the English Civil War (Sponsored by Mushrooms)
If you’ve ever wanted to watch five filthy 17th-century men lose their minds in a field while eating hallucinogenic fungi and discussing alchemy, A Field in England (2013) is the movie you didn’t know you needed. Directed by Ben Wheatley — the same mad genius who gave us Kill List and Sightseers — this black-and-white fever dream is part historical drama, part acid trip, and part philosophical breakdown.
It’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail if all the jokes were replaced with dread, and if God were replaced by a mushroom patch whispering about treasure.
You don’t so much watch this movie as descend into it. It’s like being buried alive in a peat bog of surrealism, alchemy, and British stoicism — and I mean that as a compliment.
Plot? Sort Of.
It’s the mid-1600s, and England is tearing itself apart in the Civil War — a time when politics, religion, and bad dental hygiene were all trying to kill you at once.
Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith), an alchemist’s assistant and coward of Olympic proportions, flees the battlefield after botching his duties. He’s rescued — if you can call it that — by Cutler (Ryan Pope), a soldier with the general demeanor of a man who’s been shot at by both sides one too many times. Along the way, they meet two deserters: Jacob (Peter Ferdinando), a gruff veteran, and Friend (Richard Glover), a simple-minded man who seems to think mud is a food group.
The group sets off in search of an alehouse — because when civilization collapses, the British instinctively look for a pint. Unfortunately, the only thing waiting for them is a field full of mushrooms and an Irish wizard named O’Neill (Michael Smiley) who was apparently summoned straight from Satan’s HR department.
From there, the film devolves (or ascends, depending on your tolerance for weird) into a hallucinatory power struggle involving torture, mushrooms, visions, skulls, and philosophical musings that sound profound until you realize everyone’s high as a kite.
Reece Shearsmith: The Reluctant Philosopher
Reece Shearsmith, best known for his work with The League of Gentlemen, gives a performance that’s equal parts pathetic and transcendent. His Whitehead starts off as a trembling, self-loathing servant of “the Lord’s light” — basically a Puritan intern — and ends up as something resembling a bloodied, enlightened wizard.
Watching his mental collapse is like watching a sermon performed by someone who’s been awake for 72 hours and just realized God might be a mushroom.
By the midpoint, Whitehead’s chanting in Latin, eating handfuls of fungus, and summoning invisible winds like a demented Gandalf. When he emerges from O’Neill’s tent after being tortured — wide-eyed, drenched in sweat, and smiling like he’s just solved the meaning of life — it’s one of the most chilling and absurdly funny moments in modern horror.
It’s the kind of transformation you only get when your director says, “Pretend you’re having an out-of-body experience and the camera is your therapist.”
Michael Smiley: The Wizard of Dread
Then there’s Michael Smiley as O’Neill, the Irish alchemist and all-around walking embodiment of “don’t trust men who wear capes in daylight.” Smiley brings his trademark mix of menace and mischief — half warlock, half pub philosopher who knows how to hex you with your own hangover.
He’s the kind of villain who doesn’t need special effects — he just exists, and everyone around him immediately gets 30% more doomed.
When O’Neill smiles, it’s like Satan just told him a dirty joke. When he’s quiet, you can almost hear the worms applauding.
He’s not a mustache-twirling villain — more like the kind of man who would quietly convince you to dig your own grave by calling it “alchemy.”
The Rest: A Motley Crew of Mud and Madness
Richard Glover’s “Friend” is the film’s comic relief — a mud-covered optimist who treats every situation like a particularly bad camping trip. His death scene (and resurrection) is weirdly moving, mostly because he’s the only one who seems genuinely happy about anything, even while dying.
Peter Ferdinando’s Jacob provides the film’s muscle and heart — he’s like a grumpy philosopher who expresses love by punching things.
Ryan Pope’s Cutler, meanwhile, has the honor of being the most hateable man in the field — the kind of soldier who would betray you for a warm pint and then complain it’s too flat.
Together, they form the weirdest boy band in history — The Alchemists, with their hit single “Where the Hell Is the Alehouse?”
Black-and-White Madness: Wheatley’s Genius (and Sadism)
The decision to film in stark black-and-white wasn’t just aesthetic — it’s a sanity test. Wheatley and cinematographer Laurie Rose transform a single field into an otherworldly nightmare-scape where reality and hallucination merge until you can’t tell if you’re watching history, horror, or a particularly grim farm-to-table commercial.
The visuals are hypnotic — one moment it’s pastoral, the next it’s pure cosmic terror. The mushrooms glisten like alien artifacts, the men’s faces twist in distorted close-ups, and at least once, the movie dissolves into what I can only describe as a Renaissance painting having a panic attack.
There’s an infamous strobing montage halfway through — imagine every avant-garde film from the last 60 years condensed into two minutes of eye-melting terror. It’s either a spiritual awakening or the reason you’ll need to lie down for twenty minutes after watching.
The Dialogue: Half Bible, Half Pub Fight
Ben Wheatley’s dialogue, co-written with Amy Jump, crackles with anachronistic wit. It’s Shakespearean one moment, pub brawl the next.
Jacob curses like he’s auditioning for Blackadder, Whitehead delivers tortured theological poetry, and Friend mostly says things like “I’ve shat meself,” which somehow feels profound in context.
It’s absurd, brutal, and weirdly poetic — like if Waiting for Godot had been written during a particularly bad mushroom trip.
Themes: Alchemy, Madness, and Friendship (Sort Of)
Underneath the grime and chaos, A Field in England is surprisingly heartfelt — a story about faith, control, and the fragile bond between men who share a field, some mushrooms, and no clue what’s happening.
The treasure they dig for turns out to be nothing but a skull — a perfect metaphor for human futility. The only real treasure is the brief, tragic camaraderie between these doomed souls. And the mushrooms. Definitely the mushrooms.
It’s as if Wheatley took a history textbook, sprinkled it with psilocybin, and said, “What if the meaning of life was just a joke told by the Devil in a field?”
A Trip Worth Taking
Is A Field in England for everyone? Absolutely not. If you like your horror straightforward, your history accurate, and your sanity intact, this film will make you want to run screaming into the nearest tavern.
But if you’re the kind of viewer who enjoys being unsettled, amused, and deeply confused in equal measure, it’s a masterpiece.
It’s bleak, funny, and beautiful — like Barry Lyndon on a bender or The Witch if it were directed by Monty Python’s darkest member.
By the time the credits roll, you’ll feel like you’ve lived through a spiritual crisis, a drug trip, and an art-house lecture — all at once.
Rating: 9 out of 10 Bewildered Alchemists.
Because in the end, the only thing scarier than war, witchcraft, and death is a man trying to find an alehouse in the middle of an existential crisis.
