Popular reviews

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  Review by Lucy ★ 19

  SUNDANCE 2021: film #13

  “everything seems to keep us here”

  oh this did absolutely noooooooothing for me. the plot was impossible to get into or follow along with and the stakes never felt very high. it had some occasional cool shit going on but i still didn’t care that much, and all the scenes in between were just dull. think annihilation, but make it pointless. bummer

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★½

  With the unfortunate exception of “Songbird,” which tried to wangle a Michael Bay movie out of the pandemic by turning the pandemic into a Michael Bay movie, the first wave of films written and shot during COVID have all been as confined as any of the people watching them from home. But leave it to Ben Wheatley — an irrepressible British filmmaker whose best movies (“Kill List,” “High-Rise,” “Sightseers”) have always felt like claustrophobic reactions to the psychic horrors of modern living — to zag where the likes of “Locked Down,” “Coastal Elites,” and “Malcolm & Marie” have zigged, and leverage our suffocating new status quo into an open-air horror movie that will make you never want to go outside again.…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★

  Wheatley continues to make the exactly wrong aesthetic choice in every given circumstance. In this case his folk-psychedelia is shot almost entirely in handheld close-ups. Wacky colors and a drone score are not enough for a vibe, I'm sorry. It's all just so much What-the-fuck-am-I-looking-at bullshit. Get this guy to a nunnery.

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  Review by Joe Lynch ★★★★ 6

  That was a trip, man.
  Probably the tensest and Doom-iest movie I’ve seen since PRINCE OF DARKNESS, had that dreadful vibe from the start and zig-zagged effortlessly. And it’s funny, which was welcome amidst the mist of eco-mayhem and Psychotronic slasher tropes. 
  Always love Wheatley’s left-of-center approach to his storytelling, from the story and performances to the edits to the camerawork and sound design, etc. 
  Mansell’s score is fantastic.

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  Review by kevinyang ★★ 4

  Actually really impressed by how consistently Ben Wheatley manages to take semi decent concepts and turn them into snoozefests

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  Review by 𝚮𝖆𝖗𝖑𝖊𝖖𝖚𝖎𝖓𝖆𝖉𝖊 🎃🕯️👻 ★½ 15

  Clint Mansell always understands the assignment.

  Unfortunately, no one else did.

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  Review by Jack ★★½ 1

  fuck “elevated horror,” all my homies HATE “elevated horror.”

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  Review by diego andaluz ★★★★½ 3

  Sundance 2021 - Film #15
  
  In The Earth is an ambitiously unhinged transcendent experience that is bolstered by a stellar screenplay and exquisitely lit exteriors. Featuring Ben Wheatley at his finest, it works as an insanely experimental head trip resulting in the first truly great film of the pandemic era

  Got to say that Ben Wheatley directs this like a 2000’s music video, which doesn’t work until I realized it’s EXACTLY what the film needed in its final act

  (Also, it’s my favorite film I’ve seen this year!!)

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★ 3

  Wheatley is a director whose stories and direction are interesting to some extent. Unfortunately his trademarks never quite work for me, and this film which I recall received a great reception at Sundance as you can see by my rating, wasn't one of my favorites of his work.

  The trippy scenes and the cinematography in general are undoubtedly great, capturing the surreal, wacky and somewhat dreadful nature of the film. However, none of it comes close to the level of brilliance that is the score by Clint Mansell that not only becomes the star of the film, but also sets the mood that even at its most dreary moments the film is engrossing and entertaining.

  Speaking of slow burn, that…

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  Review by Jay ★★★★

  "You have very special flesh, Martin."

  Recommended by Simon Ramshaw.

  This is cosmic horror done extremely well. I used to love going into the woods as a teenager and wondering if there was more going on than I knew, than what even scientists knew. I would make up little stories in my head about ghosts in the trees, communicating with the wind, almost as if using electricity.

  I don't think this is Wheatley's best film, nor is it even his best film centring around a cult or his best film primarily taking place in a nature setting. But it's got that Wheatley flair for visual fuckery; precision pickaxes to the eyes with strobe lighting and things moving too fast for…

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  Review by I. Simon ★★★★★ 11

  FUCK. YES.

  While I seem to be one of the very few people who actually really enjoyed the recent Rebecca, I can’t deny that I’ve missed this Ben Wheatley so damn much. 

  Kill List meets A FIELD IN ENGLAND with POSSESSOR-levels of violence and gore. A thoroughly anxiety-inducing experience, with some of the very best cinematography, editing, sound design, and scoring (Clint Mansell’s best work in years) in a recent horror film. Ben Wheatley returns to his horror roots for the first time in nearly a decade, and of course shows he’s still got it. Such masterful direction (especially when factoring in COVID restrictions) with a firm control of atmosphere, mood, and tone.

  Joel Fry is terrific, but it’s Ellora…

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  Review by Sara Clements ★★

  Sundance #9

  It makes no damn sense....compels me though