No trees, all forest in moody thriller dud

Cast: Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia Director: Ben Wheatley

Duration: 1 h 40 m Available: In cinemas, with an on-demand

release to follow I've never really warmed to the cinema of Britain's Ben Wheatley. Whether engaging with criminal types (Down Terrace, Free Fire) or superstition and madness (A Field in England), he always seems to go long on atmosphere and short on specifics. In fact, my favourite Wheatley film — and Rotten Tomatoes tells me I'm very much in the minority here — is his straightforward take on Rebecca, starring Lily James and the problematic Armie Hammer in what might be his last big-screen role for a while.

In the Earth was conceived and shot during the pandemic, and also set during one — perhaps ours, perhaps not. It's very much in the realm of madness and superstition, despite featuring two lead characters who are classic rationalists, logical and level-headed.

Martin (Joel Fry) arrives at a research station on the edge of a vast forest where cellphone signals don't penetrate. He's going in to discover the whereabouts of researcher Olivia (Hayley Squires), who's been out of touch too long. Leading him is park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia), much more at ease in the woods than this urban interloper.

“People get funny in the woods sometimes,” warns one of the researchers before they head out. And then, more ominously: “They would do well to be afraid. It is a hostile environment.”

Sure enough, Martin and Alma are attacked during the night by one or more assailants who knock them out and steal their shoes. This is only the start of Martin's podiatric humiliations, which will eventually include a nasty cut, a half-assed stitching, a quarter-asked amputation and an eighth-asked cauterization.

But before that, our heroes find refuge of sorts with Zach (Reece Shearsmith), an off-the-grid hermit whose chatty nature hides some disturbed notions he holds about the forest. They're keen to move on and locate Olivia, only to find that she and Zach are both trying to understand and even communicate with the woods around them, albeit with different methods.

“I wouldn't try to make any sense of this,” Olivia tells them when they stumble into her high-tech encampment. That's good advice for the characters, less so for audiences, who tend to like to have some shred of solid exposition on which to rest their weary heads.

You can sense Wheatley grappling with notions of nature out of balance, of forests older than humankind and not kindly disposed to our clear-cutting ways, of the long march from superstition to science, and the fuzzy boundary that sometimes separates the two. But the film that results is all jagged cuts, loud noises and discombobulation.