Something In The Dirt Trailer: Benson And Moorhead Return With More Cosmic Horror
Cosmic horror is one of cinema history's hardest subgenres to land almost by definition, as one of the central elements of a good cosmic horror story is that the horror by definition comes from forces outside our comprehension, sometimes outside the boundaries of what we know to be possible. It takes a masterful set of strokes to translate the incompressible into a distilled visual medium like the cinematic arts. Collaborators Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have time and again provided original, thoughtful, often emotional takes on that cinematic terrain, in films like "The Endless," "Spring," and "Resolution" (all films they direct, write, shoot, edit, and frequently star in).
The multi-hyphenate monster makers are back at it again with a new mind-bending outing, "Something in the Dirt" (which first premiered in Sundance 2022). The film centers on a pair of neighbors who witness the otherworldly, and they attempt to document these harrowing events beyond their control. We finally have a trailer for "Something in the Dirt," and it promises a larger-than-life experience in small (apartment-sized) spaces.
There's something cosmically frightening in Something in the Dirt
"Something in the Dirt" was shot in the middle of the pandemic, but the duo's ample experience with wearing multiple filmmaker hats under tight budgetary constraints provided great context for another thoughtful entry under adverse conditions. As Justin Benson notes in an interview, "we wanted to make a film about what it would be like if two relatively intelligent and curious individuals encountered the supernatural, and instead of running away screaming decided to study it." While the film was shot in their apartments, they worked to maintain that bigger-picture cosmic horror tone that underlies much of their work, as Benson explains:
"That's something that's consistent in all of our movies. It's the small target we're always trying to hit — getting the audience the thrill of the feeling of unease and dread. This one probably has a much bigger dark-comedy component than the other four features. [But] they all deal to some extent with cosmic dread."
It's a sense of something being a little wrong, a little beyond the pale, and vastly beyond our control that permeates another thoughtful film from the duo.
"Something in the Dirt" hits theaters on November 4, 2022.