IN THE EARTH writer-director Ben Wheatley on his secret pandemic horror film and THE MEG 2

Just weeks into the initial COVID-19 lockdown last March, UK filmmaker Ben Wheatley began channeling the fear and isolation brought on by the pandemic into what would become In the Earth, a terrifying new horror film that ties this moment in with Wheatley’s acclaimed forays into folk horror with films like Kill List and A Field in England.

Shot last June in only a few weeks, In the Earth is set in the midst of an unspecified pandemic that has brought the world to its knees. Joel Fry stars as Dr. Martin Lowery, who breaks from an extended period of isolation to search for his colleague Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has been incommunicado after arriving at a research station to investigate ways to improve crop life. Along with a park ranger named Alma (Ellora Torchia), they make their way through the twisty woods in search of Dr. Wendle.

That journey sets off a hallucinogenic and horrifying descent into madness as the pair tries to reckon with Wendle’s incredible discoveries about the very power of the earth itself, along with a torturous hermit (Reece Shearsmith) intent on keeping the secrets of the forest away from prying eyes.

With elements of a survivalist thriller combined with folk and cosmic horror, all set against an all-too-familiar pandemic, In the Earth is an assault on the senses that practically demands repeat viewings. Wheatley dials up the gore and suspense throughout while crafting an immersive and unsettling look at our relationship with nature, within a swirling narrative style that nods to films like 2001 by way of The Blair Witch Project and even The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. 

We caught up with Wheatley to discuss why In the Earth was kept secret until it was done, why it’s never a good idea to reveal too much to an audience, and what to expect from his upcoming The Meg 2, the sequel to the Jason Statham vs. a giant shark action bonanza.

In the Earth is in select theatres now and arrives on video-on-demand on May 14.

Bad Feeling Magazine: Could you take me back to the beginning of In the Earth? As the world was shutting down, what inspired you to start working on a film like this?

Ben Wheatley: To try and try and hold on to some kind of semblance of sanity, I think. Partially, it was the weird feeling that everyone must have had, of like going at 100 miles an hour, and then one day, just no, no miles an hour. [Laughs] And just thinking, “What am I? Who am I? What do I do?” You know, having your purpose kind of taken away for a bit and just a time to reflect and kind of try and understand what had been happening over the last few years.

But yeah, I wrote a lot. I just ended up writing for like two or three months, all sorts of different stuff. And I started to form this story about these people trying to encounter this thing that was controlling large amounts of land, but which is basically a brain, but it was so alien that how could they communicate with it? And then I started thinking about the main thing that separates us from animals is this ability to create stories, and how sometimes that’s useful, and sometimes that’s really dangerous, and that kind of ties into this kind of folkloric situation that Zach [Reece Shearsmith] has.

His story is really strong, but how realistic, really, is the story and that coming from someone who’s made films with folkloric kind of detail in it, and knowing how much of it was made up, like from scratch, with no historical research, and how that then seeps into the culture and becomes part of the story. And when I started looking at some of this folk stuff, which is not that old, a lot of it is really Victorian or something, but it feels real, but it isn’t quite. The history that it kind of talks about is often a period where there’s no written history. So it’s been reinterpreted and made up and kind of cobbled together. So, I was thinking about that, and what my responsibilities [are] for how I’ve been making movies, basically.

When you think of In the Earth in terms of the lineage of your films like Kill List and A Field in England, obviously they had folkloric tendencies as well — was that through-line conscious in your mind, almost like an unofficial trilogy?

Yeah, kind of. I mean, I think it’s a conversation between In the Earth and Field in England, definitely, it’s not as strong a thing as a sequel or prequel or whatever, but it’s more kind of trying to understand it and trying to unpick it. But it tends to happen, you know, I think Sightseers is another version of Kill List, you know, effectively it’s the same film. And even Rebecca is basically another version of Sightseers, you know, in that world of like, the man who was introduced to the woman, and then he turns out to be the murderer, it’s the same film and they travel and all that stuff.

So you end up, even when you don’t even realize it, going over and re-digesting the kind of ideas that you’ve been having. And certainly now, where it’s like 10 years in, I’m starting to get a perspective of the work I was doing and thinking about who I was when I was making that stuff.

What was the mood was like on set since it was so early on in the pandemic days? Were you constantly looking at the news and discussing what was happening and how that might potentially affect the film and films, in general, going forward?

It was June when we shot it in the UK, and we were just really happy to just be outside, at night and with people, because we hadn’t seen anybody for months. It was lucky, when we shot it, we shot it at the bottom of the curve of infection in the UK. So it was as safe as it could be. And it wasn’t — it was a plan, but it was a plan that worked, rather than a plan that was a disaster. [Laughs]

And that’s why we didn’t tell anyone about the film when we made it because we just didn’t want to be embarrassing and kind of go, “We’re making it, oh no, we’ve shut down because someone got COVID.” We were very careful about it. And it’s interwoven into the spirit of the DNA of the movie, that’s why it’s outside because it’s very hard for COVID to be transmitted [outdoors]. But we all wore masks and sanitized, the whole nine yards. But it was cheery, people were happy to be working, happy to be out of the house! [Laughs] And that was it. And then yeah, no more work after that, until now.

It was distressing watching the film when they mentioned the third wave, which is what we’re in right now. It was just so prescient, I couldn’t believe it. It really threw me.

That was written, that was projecting ahead from March [2020]. So in a way, it’s slightly optimistic, that there will be an end to it. It didn’t feel like it was ever going to end at the beginning.

When you were filming In the Earth, was it something that you hoped to see open in theaters? Were you getting used to the VOD model that we have now or this sort of hybrid model with day-and-date releases in theatres and on-demand?

No one knew what was going to happen. And we kind of don’t really know what’s going to happen now. But I was hoping people would see it in cinemas, because it’s a cinema film, you know, it needs to be big and loud to experience it. But I wasn’t taking that for granted. And I’ve done plenty of movies that have gone … you know, Rebecca had a small theatrical, very tiny theatrical release [when] we were just on the cusp of the lockdown, and then went straight to streaming.

So, I don’t mind that, in a way, what’s more important is the impact of the experience or the size of the audience and those things fight against each other. You know, it’s really important that you see it the best you can see it. But if that means that no one sees it, then that’s a real problem, you know? [Laughs] So VOD is a brilliant audience, it’s a big audience and you’re more likely to take a risk on something. And you don’t get stung for $200 on hot dogs and big giant Cokes and stuff. You get to watch it from your home. I swing back and forth on it.

Your films, especially In the Earth, don’t necessarily hold an audience’s hand in terms of things like backstory, and even the final resolution at the end of the film. Is there a sort of a back and forth in the process of what to clearly state for audiences or what to let them absorb and reinterpret on their own?

I mean, I don’t know, I watch a lot of movies that have absolutely no backstory. And like, classic movies often have no backstory, and no one ever made a peep about the problems of those, you know.

I actually appreciate that. I think for backstory, especially exposition backstory, just cut it out.

Yeah, you want to be in a moment. The thing that [Executive Producer] Amy Jump and I have a conversation about a lot is that you never want people talking about something that’s more interesting than what you’re looking at. You know, it’s like an interesting anecdote from the past about when all this shit happened and the giant robot blew up and all that, no one cares about that. Number one, you don’t want to see that. If you’re going to show it show it, but you can’t chat about it. I think that is a problem.

And in a way, the blank slate of a character that you experience, you understand their emotional state through watching them do stuff and things happening to them, is the better version of any drama, rather than they chat and go, “Oh, yeah, it was really tough when I was a kid.” Or “One last job,” you know? But also, I think with mystery and monsters and all these things in horror, the more you explain it, the more you steal the magic of it. Because the scariest part of all these things is the bit in your head where you make the jump, that gap between what you’re seeing on screen and what you’re afraid of, you know? And if I’m telling you, “You’re afraid of eggs,” and you’re like, “I’m not afraid of eggs,” that’s it, you’re fucked. If you define it too much, it breaks it.

Personally, growing up in a city my whole life, even just being out in the woods is already terrifying to me, so you already have me from the second they step into the woods. And that’ll be different for viewers who grew up in more rural areas.

Yeah, a mate of mine saw it, and he said, “As soon as he lost the shoes, that was it. I was terrified.” I was like, the shoes?

You’re making a big jump from this film that you did so quickly to The Meg 2. What is that adjustment is like, and how do you out-Meg, something like The Meg, which is such an over-the-top action-adventure as it is.

That is the challenge, you know?  The script is great, and the creatures are big, and there’s loads of massive action. So yeah, that’s obviously the mission, to do that. I think the difference between a big movie and a tiny movie, they have different sets of challenges. You know, when you go write in a crowd scene [in a smaller film], and then you go, “Hmm, I’m never going to have this crowd, why am I even writing it in, it’s going to get clipped out in some kind of production meeting at some point.” [On a larger film] you write in a crowd scene and go, “Oh, it’s 1,000 people? Well, it could be 100,000.”  That’s the difference, you know? But the actual nuts and bolts of putting shots together and holding attention and acting is all exactly the same.

One of the things that inspired the film was looking at … we found online the schedule for Halloween, and seeing how that was done, and how much time [John Carpenter] took to make that movie. And it was really surprising. I was like, “Fuck, the fact that they shot that in such a short amount of time.” But he just knows what he’s doing, you know, obviously, and it’s a masterpiece. We had, in adjusted dollars, we had the same budget, pretty much, as Halloween.

So we thought, “Well, you know, if you can make a masterpiece like this in this amount of time, it’s embarrassing if we can’t make something that’s OK.” Going back to those kinds of those restrictions, I think was important, you know?

I think that the whole trick with those things is that you back into the budget rather than you write some crazy shit and then you hope someone will pay for it. You write stuff that you know that you’re going to be able to make and then on set, it’s fine. It’s never a stress and I never felt like for a minute that I didn’t have enough time, or like, “I wanted a much bigger tent!” or something like that. That never happened. It was all exactly as it was drawn. It was really good.

In the Earth is in select theatres now and arrives on video-on-demand on May 14.