There are “back to nature” movies, and then there’s In the Earth, which strongly suggests that nature has seen what we’ve done, taken notes, and would like to return the favor through noise, spores, and a light show that feels like being drop-kicked into a screensaver from hell.
Ben Wheatley’s pandemic-shot psychedelic folk horror is one of those films that either gets under your skin or just makes you mutter “what did I just watch?” as you blink at the end credits. I mean this as a compliment. It’s messy, hypnotic, funny in a very bleak way, and pretty much the cinematic equivalent of licking a mossy rock and then suddenly understanding why druids were so weird.
Science, trauma, and a nice walk that goes very wrong
We open with Martin Lowery (Joel Fry), a gentle, awkward scientist who looks like he apologizes to plants before cutting samples. He’s arriving at a government outpost in the middle of a mysterious pandemic (relatable!) to trek into the woods and find his former colleague and ex, Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who is researching mycorrhizal networks to boost crop yields.
In plain terms:
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He’s a scientist
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She’s a scientist
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The forest is full of mushrooms connected by underground fungal networks
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What could possibly go wrong apart from everything
Martin is paired with Alma (Ellora Torchia), a park guide who is calm, capable, and has that look of someone who knows this is a bad idea but is still too polite to refuse the shift. She mentions local folk tales of a woodland spirit called Parnag Fegg, then cheerfully leads him on a two-day hike toward Olivia’s research site.
Of course, this is a horror movie, so:
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They find an abandoned tent
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Something attacks them at night
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Their gear is trashed
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Their shoes get stolen
If you’ve ever thought, “What if The Blair Witch Project but with more fungal biology and fewer emotional breakdowns in front of a camcorder?” — congratulations, you’ve arrived.
Zach: forest hobo, performance artist, probable red flag
Enter Zach (Reece Shearsmith), alone in the woods and radiating the exact energy of “man you should never accept help from but definitely will because he has shoes.”
He:
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Stitches up Martin’s injured foot
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Feeds them
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Gives them drink
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Is extremely friendly in that “I have too much eye contact for someone living off-grid” way
Naturally, the drink is drugged, and once our duo pass out, Zach gets… creative:
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Dresses them in strange clothes
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Poses them for ritualistic photos
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Stitches a symbol and animal gut into Martin’s arm like it’s a cursed Etsy commission
This is where Wheatley’s dark humor really kicks in. Zach is horrifying but also oddly pathetic—part cultist, part frustrated artist, part guy who read one ancient book and decided to build his entire personality around it. When he starts talking about the presence in the woods and how the symbol is a mark “to be seen,” you can practically hear the forest sighing, “Oh god, this guy again.”
Also, at one point, Zach amputates Martin’s toes with a hatchet. It’s brutal, squirm-inducing, and somehow made even more disturbing by how matter-of-factly he does it, like he’s fixing a broken tent peg. If you’re squeamish: maybe don’t eat during that scene. Or ever again.
Olivia, the stone, and nature’s very loud opinion
Martin eventually stumbles into the orbit of Olivia, who:
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Saves him
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Cauterizes his foot
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Casually explains that yes, she’s trying to communicate with a forest entity
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Oh, and Zach is her ex-husband, so that’s awkward
Her research involves using sound and light to “speak” to the entity that manifests via a standing stone in the forest.
This is where the film goes from “woods horror” to “full psychedelic ritual”:
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Strobing lights
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Deafening abstract soundscapes
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Images and editing that feel like being trapped inside a sentient screensaver having a breakdown
Olivia thinks she’s doing science. Zach thinks he’s doing worship. The entity—whether you call it Parnag Fegg, the forest, or “that thing that really hates human signal processing”—seems perfectly happy to melt everyone’s brains as long as they keep cranking the volume.
Alma, meanwhile, has the rare horror-movie gift of being right about everything:
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She doesn’t trust Zach (correct)
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She doesn’t trust Olivia (also correct)
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She would very much like to leave (relatable)
Unfortunately, thick fungal mist loaded with spores rolls in and turns the forest into a hallucinogenic escape room with no exit.
Mushrooms, pandemics, and communication breakdown
One of the clever things In the Earth does is blur:
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Myth and science
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Spiritual experience and neurological meltdown
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Pandemic anxiety and ecological horror
You’ve got:
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A real-world pandemic in the background
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A fungal network in the forest that literally connects and influences everything
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A scientist trying to “talk” to this system
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Folk tales that frame this same system as a spirit
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And a lot of people breathing spores they really shouldn’t
It toys with the idea that:
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We’re never really separate from our environment
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Our attempts to dominate, interpret, or weaponize nature say more about us than about the world
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And nature, if it did decide to respond, probably wouldn’t do it in nice, manageable sentences
Instead, it would be:
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Overwhelming sensations
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Patterns we can’t decode
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Visions that may or may not mean anything
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A whole bunch of humans insisting they’ve figured it out while looking extremely possessed
Which is pretty much the plot. In a good way.
Performances: chaos in the clearing
The cast absolutely sells this weird little eco-nightmare:
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Joel Fry plays Martin like a man perpetually five seconds behind the situation, a kind of dazed kindness that makes his suffering oddly funny and very sad. He’s not built for this, and it shows.
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Ellora Torchia’s Alma is the low-key MVP: practical, grounded, and just genre-savvy enough to survive longer than anyone else has any right to.
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Hayley Squires as Olivia is unnervingly intense—half brilliant scientist, half cult leader who doesn’t realize she’s started a cult.
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Reece Shearsmith goes full unhinged forest goblin, chewing scenery and occasionally toes.
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Clint Mansell’s score and the oppressive sound design basically count as additional cast members: constantly needling your nerves, pulsing like the world’s most malevolent ambient album.
The vibes: folk horror on a bad trip
This is not a movie for everyone.
If you need:
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Clear answers
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A neat explanation for the entity
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Or a clean three-act resolution
You’re going to be as frustrated as Zach is with modern forestry policy.
But if you:
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Enjoy folk horror
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Like your stories strange, ambiguous, and sensory-heavy
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Appreciate films that feel like actual nightmares—illogical but emotionally coherent
Then In the Earth is a beautifully weird experience. It’s:
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Funny in a dry, bleak British way
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Brutal in sudden bursts
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Gorgeously shot in the woods
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Willing to commit fully to the bit of “what if the forest is talking and we’re just very bad listeners”
Final verdict: Hug a tree (at your own risk)
In the Earth is a pandemic brain movie in the best possible sense:
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Small cast
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Constrained setting
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Big ideas about isolation, connection, and the environment quietly judging us
It’s not trying to comfort you. It’s trying to:
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Disorient you
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Make you laugh nervously
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Make you wince at improvised surgery
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And leave you wondering whether that rustling outside is the wind… or the ecosystem finally filing a complaint
At its core, it’s a story about humans barging into an ancient system with lights, soundboards, and theories, and the forest responding the only way it knows how: by overwhelming them.
So yes, it’s weird. Yes, it’s trippy. Yes, it’s occasionally like being locked in a haunted art installation that’s really into biology.
But it’s also smart, bold, oddly funny, and absolutely committed to its own madness.
If you’re willing to follow Wheatley into the woods, In the Earth rewards you with something rare: a horror film that doesn’t just ask what’s lurking out there…
It quietly suggests that maybe we’re the weird ones, and the forest is just finally returning our calls.
