Something in the Dirt

I have been a fan of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead for a few years. Having seen all of their feature films and direction on the Marvel series Moon Knight, I can confidently say that I think they are terrific filmmakers, even though their work isn't for everyone. Their bizarre and thought-provoking stories always suck me in. For that reason alone, I will watch anything new they work on. Something in the Dirt may be my least favourite of their work so far, but I'd be lying if I didn't at least say I had a very good time watching it.

After Levi (Justin Benson) moves into a new apartment complex, his neighbour John (Aaron Moorhead) becomes friends with him when they both witness supernatural occurrences. Choosing to document it in hopes that their story will make them money, they begin to get in a little over their heads. Since the supernatural occurrences do not allow themselves to be filmed, they wait until they've experienced it and then recreate it. So it's real, but not really. This made the film much more interesting to me, but the conclusion is what kept me from thinking it was great.

Many viewers may find themselves unsatisfied with how this story comes to a close, but I can't get into that without spoiling the final scene. This is a well-done film and their comedic friendship helps drive it, but it just felt that the premise was far too interesting for where it actually ends up. Unlike their other films where they just go for it and don't care about how ridiculous some things might be, Something in the Dirt feels very tame in comparison. Still, the creativity is present from start to finish as always.

In the end, Something in the Dirt has some great camera work and the story itself is very fun and intriguing. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are both likeable actors and they do a great job directing as well, but it's a very small movie, so I expected nothing less. I took away a few lessons and ideals from this movie that really made me think, but again, the film itself doesn't explore those things nearly enough. This is a screenplay that is fantastic until the third act, which was slightly frustrating. Still, overall, I'm still pretty positive about the movie for being so creative. Something in the Dirt is now available on demand.

Not even sure what to make of this. I'm told this was conceived and initiated during Covid and I applaud Benson and Moorhead for keeping the creative spark alive during this difficult time. But this film, frugally shot with sparse cameras, small cast, and minimal sets, falls bizarrely flat in the second half after a promising and intriguing start. An interesting and unexplainable phenomenon occurs, which could have led to multiple potential legit sci-fi storylines. Okay, I'm hooked. But soon, the tale dissolves into confusing pseudo-science banter, and wild conspiracy theories, with a side dose of anger and paranoia. In the end, nothing is really resolved and the whole event could just as easily have been explained away as the result of a lengthy acid trip. I think I'll just say "weirdly unsatisfying" and leave it at that.

I can't quite put my finger on it but after the first 30 minutes I was so lost, bored and tired that I didn't really care much for what was coming next. I think if this had been one of their earlier films, I would have appreciated it more. But I expected better from them at this point. I was expecting something more cinematic, and I feel like it was a heavily filtered movie that just didn't live up to my expectations.

I think the movie tried to do too much and the filmmakers were given too much freedom to do so because of their success on previous projects. I may revisit it one day, but for now, I remain neutral on this one.

Diverting enough flick written and directed by the stars. Two thirty-somethings, who can barely swing the monthly rent on the dives they live in, are neighbors in an apartment building. As they introduce themselves they find that perhaps they are too different to hang. Then, an ashtray starts to float in a halo of light. When they come to terms with the floating and glowing of things they realize that have to film this. This is proof of ghosts, or aliens, or afterlife, or whatever it is. They have to film it, edit it into a cohesive documentary, and get rich quick. So that's what they set out to do, aside from and around their arguments. As they argue and insult they uncover truths and each other's pain in life.

If you ever had an argument with a true believer in some wacky conspiracy theory, you know that logic, reason, evidence and fact get you nowhere with these people.

There is a different approach to confronting them, one which is rarely practiced because it is difficult to pull off both convincingly and usefully. Let's call this approach "amplification": instead of trying to reason with this crowd, you try to one-up them in the most ludicrous way which still maintains a hair of plausibility (at least to those already deep into a conspiratorial mindset). So, every detail that even the conspiracy theorist overlooked becomes important, every theory they come up with is explained by a yet deeper theory, which, if they inquire about it, has its origin in yet a deeper theory, all based on a vast collection of seemingly random facts and events.

The point of amplification is to fight absurdity with even more and outrageous absurdity, in the hope that at some point the conspiracy theorists realize on their own how ridiculous it all is. It is irony on steroids. A real-life example, albeit created more for the sake of satire than refutation, is the "birds aren't real" movement.

I feel that SOMETHING IN THE DIRT is the cinematic equivalent of amplification. Two struggling co-tenants happen to come across a supernatural phenomenon and decide to try to turn their luck by making a documentary out of it in order to win money and prizes.

The conceit of the story is that every single thread they follow, no matter how random or stupid, turns out to have some eerie significance in terms of connecting to other random or stupid threads. Their world is, in short, a conspiracy theorist's paradise, a universe in which nothing is random, yet at the same time nothing can mean anything because the meaning is always deferred to the next connecting thread.

As the movie uncompromisingly follows the two protagonists' voyage deep into the head-spinning rabbit hole, we understand less and less what is causing the original supernatural phenomenon. At the same time, though, we gain a better understanding of the flaws that predisposed the two characters to become conspiracy theorists coming from vastly different backgrounds. Their flaws rob them of success in their venture, but not of their humanity, and so the characters are a mirror to the current age of Qanon and other stupid conspiracy theories.

Reading some of the reviews, I feel that many viewers have misunderstood the movie. At the end, the phenomenon and many other strange connections are left completely unexplained, and it seems many people did not like this.

But the movie really could not have done otherwise without compromising its integrity because offering a resolution to the mysteries the characters encounter, any resolution at all, would have undermined its central aim. It would have turned the film from an anti-conspiracy theory movie to just another conspiracy theory movie. I am not a big fan of open endings in movies, but in this case I can understand that it was absolutely necessary to make the point.

The technical aspects of the movie are fine, and the central premise is ingenious. The greatest challenge this movie faces, I think, is to convey to the audience what exactly it is about, a challenge rendered all the more daunting by the fact that there really isn't any other movie like it. Movies with a message have to thread a fine line between being too obvious and preachy and being too obscure and mystifying. I think if DIRT had erred a little less on the side of being obscure, it could have communicated its message more clearly, a message which is more important now than ever.