Review: Ben Wheatley’s ‘In the Earth’ summons the elemental nature of folk horror

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a plague in England — the same pandemic that we happen to be living through — as writer-director Ben Wheatley started the script for “In the Earth” early in 2020. The extreme caution and danger dictated by the plague add an extra layer of threat to “In the Earth,” a film that draws from a deep well of horror references, including “Frankenstein” and “The Wicker Man.” Wheatley has dabbled in folk horror before, notably in “Kill List” and “A Field in England,” but the subgenre, which grapples with the clash of the ancient and the modern, is especially suited to a story like “In the Earth,” troubled as it is by mysterious rhythms of the earth, and their effect on the human body and mind. Wheatley’s film works on a purely elemental level; like nature itself, the film is a sensory event, the narrative often subsumed by the aural and visual experience. Some choices, like Wheatley’s unique approach to film editing — making rapid little cuts when you least expect them — are more successful than others, such as the abstrusely hallucinatory montages.