In the Earth
Neon | Release Date: April 16, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJun 18, 2021
Not everything works in the admirably bizarre In the Earth, but nobody can deny Wheatley is back in his freak-folk wheelhouse. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergApr 15, 2021
If the bigger picture of In the Earth doesn’t appear fully realized — this is a movie not just of the moment, but perhaps rushed to meet it — it would be difficult, this year, for at least some of its atmosphere of isolation-induced madness not to inspire a chill. Read full review
60
Time OutDave CalhounFeb 2, 2021
The result is a soil-under-the-fingernails, forest-bound mindmelter – with bonus pagan chills. Read full review
60
Total FilmJordan FarleyFeb 2, 2021
Ben Wheatley goes back to basics for a pandemic chiller where Covid is the last thing to be afraid of. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 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
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJan 31, 2021
In a flawed yet fierce return to form, Ben Wheatley has crafted a phantasmagoric treat with In the Earth, an ambitious, atmospheric little woodland horror. Read full review
58
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpFeb 3, 2021
With In the Earth, Wheatley hits a brick wall, but he hits it hard enough that whether one sees the film as successful or not, the effort remains admirable. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Apr 14, 2021
In The Earth feeds the indiscriminate appetites of gorehounds and bong-rippers alike. Everyone else may find it as ghastly boring as the violence is just plain ghastly. Read full review
50
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyJan 31, 2021
By the time Wheatley, who also edited, concludes with a full-on eye-searing weird-out, it’s hard not to feel that he is retreading old ground – that this isn’t a more arboreally lavish A Field in England 2.0. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJason BaileyJan 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
45
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzApr 21, 2021
When Ben Wheatley is having a laugh, he can make for a perversely pleasant genre tour-guide. When he starts to get high off his own supply, though, it’s best to hike back to civilization. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreApr 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
40
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 31, 2021
The cluttered plot keeps surging forward while providing too few illuminating insights, instead loading up on mystical mumbo jumbo and flashes of gore. Read full review
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