Ben Wheatley

Meg 2: the Trench

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The meg takes on Jason Statham

Meg 2: the Trench, in which a studio tries to turn a good, fun one-off into a franchise and winds up on the beach face down, gasping for air and with gravel in its shorts. Quick recap: a massive prehistoric shark, a Megalodon, escapes the depths where it generally operates and starts menacing the upper reaches and beaches of our planet. Enter Jason Statham. Surely one man cannot be a match for something this big? That was The Meg. In Meg 2: the Trench, the monster shark is back, and so is Statham. And if we’d been served up Meg 1 all over again, I doubt anyone would have complained too loudly. It … Read more

In the Earth

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A shadowy man with an axe

In the Earth is Ben Wheatley’s most overtly horror of horror films since he did the U is for Unearthed section of the portmanteau The ABCs of Death, though in films like Sightseers, High Rise and last year’s Rebecca horror has always lurked at the edges of his work. Made during the covid pandemic, and incorporating its disinfecting/distancing precautions into theme and treatment (there’s a covid supervisor in the crew credits), it’s a film all about infection, though the contagion in question isn’t so much microbial or viral as an infection of the rational mind by the spores of unreason. In In the Earth, cool, clear, scientifically trained minds are taken over by … Read more