60. In the Earth (Wild Card)

Hello, horror hounds, this week on the Rotten Horror Picture Show, it’s our sixtieth episode (if you continue to count the Bram Stoker’s Dracula mishap), and that means it’s Wild Card Week! We’re getting a little heady with our horror for the big 6-0, a little psychedelic, a little fungal, and a lot English, as we trek out into nature with Ben Wheatley’s In The Earth!

As the world searches for a cure to a devastating virus, a scientist and a park scout venture deep into the woods. As night falls, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness as the forest comes to life around them. Psychedelic imagery, shocking gore, ancient folk rituals, and more psychedelic imagery abound in this taut, slow burn. It’s a frightful walk into the forest of the mind and the forest of fear.

Join Clay and Amanda as they cut through the weeds of that one guy from your college dorm who always had an acoustic guitar (who may or may not actually exist), animal(?) guts used as surgical thread, fashionable “tarp couture” ritual outfits, Martin’s “special flesh,” and “a lot of information to keep track of.” No parenting of any kind this week, as there are only like 4 people in the whole movie!

“In The Earth” is the first movie we’ve done that was produced specifically during, and as a response to, the global Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. It takes the pandemic into consideration and is “about” it, but it’s more than just a surface level setting, it effectively takes pandemic elements and explores them in a unique folk horror kind of way that is sure to leave you stressed out, grossed out, and weirded out.

So do put on your thickest shoes, sniff some mushroom spores, meet a friend in the woods, and pray to Parnag Fegg with us…if you dare!