Ben Wheatley on Folk Horror, Weaponizing Stories And His Wild Quarantine Thriller 'In The Earth'

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Best known for his gripping and visceral work on “High-Rise” and Netflix’s recent “Rebecca,” director Ben Wheatley’s latest Sundance offering “In The Earth” is a return to the bloody, brain-scrambling flicks he cut his teeth on.

Wheatley joined his cast Ellora Torchia and Joel Fry at Variety’s Sundance Studio, presented by AT&T, to discuss his psychedelic woodland horror film.

“In the Earth” takes place in the middle of horrific pandemic. After months of quarantine a scientist (Fry) joins a remote science outpost deep in the forest. But before he can get settled he must journey out into the unknown with a park scout (Torchia) deep into the forest for a regular equipment run. As all things Wheatley, the forest (and those that inhabit it) are not at all what they seem.

“It’s designed as an audience film,” Wheatley said. “I would have loved to have been there to hear the gasps.”

In giving up the communal theater-going horror movie experience, Wheatley positioned that releasing the film at a later time would have lost its relevance.

“The film itself wouldn’t exist without COVID in the first place,” Wheatley said. “The impulse for it was to make a film about the moment, and this is the moment.”