| Neon | Release Date: April 16, 2021 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
20
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2
|
Watch Now
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
Critic Reviews
Jan 31, 2021
Freed from studio constraints, In The Earth is a psychedelic visual spectacle and a gory philosophical treatise on humanity’s nebulous and threatening relationship with nature. Restless audiences may quibble with the pacing and length, but fans of bombastic visual sequences and discomforting violence will find plenty to like.
Read full review
IndieWireJan 31, 2021
In the Earth may not run deep enough to grow roots, but it’s the first COVID movie that dares to think beyond what it can see in front of its face, venture into the world outside, and confront how terrifying and necessary it’s going to be to commune with nature on new terms when the nightmare is over.
Read full review
The Observer (UK)Jun 20, 2021
Jun 17, 2021
Provocative, despicably playful, and consistently punishing, stitched into the skin of the writer-director’s latest film are a multitude of issues relating to Covid-19 and the anxieties of lockdown, the fragility of our environment, the brutality and arrogance of mankind, and our inability to recognise or truly understand the power of the natural world, or indeed ourselves.
Read full review
Apr 12, 2021
In the Earth is an oppressive, bizarre trip of sight, sound, and spore-induced psychedelia. Director Ben Wheatley sometimes sacrifices characterization for the loftier ideas about nature he wants to explore but given how innately the audience should understand how one would be affected by a pandemic, it’s a gambit that mostly pays off as the film’s third act roars toward an all-out sensory assault in the climax.
Read full review
Screen RantMay 2, 2021
It’s a rousing horror with entrancing lore, an eco thriller with interesting themes, and a hostage drama that banks on gruesome and disorienting actions. Not everything comes together cohesively, but the story has a lot to offer and it’s grounded enough to leave a big and lasting impression.
Read full review
Apr 19, 2021
The natural world gives us the resources to live. It also gives us viruses. And while some characters seek to chart aspects of nature and others wish to pay loving tribute (and offer sacrifices) to it, the most resonant notion from Earth‘s characters is that nature is a living, breathing, and undeniably aggressive entity. How Wheatley translates this notion into a bounty of Pagan paranoia is what makes the film undeniably his.
Read full review
SlashfilmJan 31, 2021
The final 20 or so minutes of In the Earth are downright impenetrable, and while that’s no doubt the point, it doesn’t make the experience any less frustrating. In a sense, Wheatley has successfully recreated the experience of stumbling around, lost in the woods, unable to see the forest for the trees.
Read full review
Jan 31, 2021
The film feels right in line with the kind of mayhem that Wheatley has been serving up his entire career, including some graphically gory details that are hard to unsee. And in that way, it’s not unlike the pandemic itself, infecting our brains with sick ideas — which, of course, is just what a certain audience wants from a horror movie.
Read full review
The PlaylistJan 31, 2021
In the Earth isn’t a complete washout; there are moments of bleak humor, genre fans will enjoy the striking imagery and gross-out shivers, and the director has an undeniable gift for setting and maintaining a mood (he gets a big assist on the latter from Clint Mansell’s synth score). But ultimately, it’s kind of a slog.
Read full review
Apr 15, 2021
COVID has proven a difficult subject for fiction, but In the Earth feels as though it sets up an emotional parallel that it doesn’t follow through on, abandoning the virus as a backdrop for a horror story that’s slapdash and never very creepy. It’s another instance of pandemic cinema that feels as if it could use more distance to figure out what it wants to say.
Read full review
The Film StageJan 31, 2021
Perhaps months or even years from now, it will be easier to disassociate the film from the real-world details that influenced its creation and give it a second look. In the present, though, In the Earth feels like a project designed to stave up boredom. Perhaps it did, for Wheatley and his crew. For everyone else, the memories of watching will be quickly buried.
Read full review
Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
