Exclusive – Director Ben Wheatley on how '70s Doctor Who influenced his new horror film In the Earth
"Just remembering those old Doctor Whos makes me afraid."
In the Earth, the new pandemic-themed folk horror from Ben Wheatley, has many inspirations, from The Blair Witch Project to Quatermass and, according to the director, one of those influences is 1970s Doctor Who.
Wheatley – who directed the Doctor Who episodes Deep Breath and Into the Dalek back in 2014 – revealed that just the thought of some of those older episodes of the iconic sci-fi series still makes him scared, which fed directly into the film.
"I got asked what I'm afraid of a few years ago, and my answer was the '70s!" he told RadioTimes.com.
"There's something about – and maybe that just means my own childhood – but there's something about '70s stuff that I've always found really sinister, and the idea of just remembering those old Doctor Whos makes me afraid, in a way beyond the actual, how they were executed. Just the feeling of that makes me scared."
Speaking further about the other works that had inspired the film, he added, "I think the whole film is a kind of travelogue through different types of horror. It starts almost like Hansel and Gretel, and then it goes into like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
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"And then the later part of the movie is more of a Nigel Kneale 1970s scientific horror, and has that slightly different change of pace where it takes its time a bit more and is a bit more deliberate."
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The film tells the story of a scientist and a park scout (Joel Fry and Ellora Torchia respectively) who, several months into a pandemic, make a trek into the woods which, unsurprisingly, goes disastrously wrong – with Reece Shearsmith soon popping up as a slightly deranged camper.
Wheatley explained that there's something about the fear of the woods that's "primal", saying, "It's the same reason you're still afraid of bears and tigers and stuff. This is terrible pseudoscience but there is this kind of weird fear that, you know, these things have killed your ancestors. If you were stupid enough to walk into the woods without any preparation, that you would die – you could possibly die."
He added, "It was interesting when we did the filming because we were in woods which were untended. And our urban experience of woods are often on paths and cleaned up and sorted out, or they're actually woods that have been planted for harvest, so the trees roll in straight lines and all this.
"But when you go into an untended wood, it's just carnage everywhere. It's like broken trees and spiky bits of wood sticking out the ground, and there's no clear path through anything. And I think that's when you start to realise that, 'Yeah, maybe if you went into a wood that was big enough, you could come quite unstuck quite quickly.'"
In the Earth is in cinemas from Friday 18th June 2021. Visit our Movies hub for all the latest news. Looking for something to watch tonight? Check out our TV Guide.
