In the Earth

During a lethal pandemic, a researcher and a park scout hike into a vast English wood to reach a colleague's remote equipment. They are attacked, taken in by a hermit, and drawn into a conflict over an ancient presence in the forest that the trees themselves may be serving.

Wheatley wrote and shot it during the actual lockdown, quickly and with a tiny crew, and the constraints suit it: a small cast, one forest, and an escalating strobe-and-drone assault on the senses that recalls A Field in England.

It is about the folklore of place and about people's need to make meaning from a hostile nature, and it never confirms whether the presence is real or a shared delusion.

The lens-and-light sequences are genuinely disorienting and there is a photosensitivity warning for a reason.

It is minor Wheatley and it is the best film made about that specific moment.