Something In The Dirt (2022) Explanation and Review! (2023)

Introduction

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Content

Hello and welcome to rotted reviews- and today I want to talk about a movie that I watched just last night, the new film from writer director team, Justin, Benson and Aaron Moorhead, something in the dirt.

The team behind the cosmic horror, film's resolution, the endless uh synchronic and spring are back at it with a little bit more of a toned down.

Smaller production fare, so I kind of want to talk about this movie a little bit more in depth than just a standard spoiler for review, so I'm going to start out as a spoiler free review and then I'm going to transition over into more of a spoilery discussion.

Talking about the ending of it and my interpretation of a lot of what was going on in this film and the spoiler-free synopsis of this film are two gentlemen John and Levi played by Justin, Benson and Aaron Moorhead meet up together when Levi moves into an apartment, building in Los Angeles and shortly after their introduction to one another and after moving some furniture into Levi's apartment, they find some odd phenomenon happening and they decide that it's a ghost or something.

But whatever it is, it's unexplainable, so they should try to explain it in the form of potentially a documentary that they could film and profit off of this leads them down a rabbit hole of theory, supposition and connecting dots together as the phenomenon ramps up more and more now, one of the things that I love about this Duo, especially as the filmmaker team behind resolution and the endless, is their ability to tackle large-scale Cosmic horror, Concepts on a more character-driven ground level, aspect and I.

Think in that, by focusing on the smaller, by focusing on the more narrow and tackling broad Concepts, it allows those Concepts to hammer home just a little bit more and allow the horror aspect of them to really shine through and I.

Think in that with something in the dirt.

They focus on that on a much smaller and more narrow scale more akin to resolution than anything else, but as much as I loved the movies that they had done previously.

One of the things that I liked about this one is it took that narrative and instead of putting it on repeat kind of held it up to its own mirror and in doing so its own scrutiny.

By forcing it to take an honest look at itself.

This is a little bit of a difficult one for me to recommend, because it is a bit slow it tracks back on itself.

It asks questions and destroys its own theories as it goes along and in that for a lot of casual viewers, there may be a strong sense of what was the point by the time they finished, watching it.

I guess.

The best thing that I can say is I really do strongly recommend watching the 2012 movie of resolution and further than that, the 2017 movie of the Endless and if you enjoyed both of those I, would have to say both of those, then I would recommend giving something in the dirt a whirl, bearing in mind that you are in for a similar but remarkably different ride at the same time.

So, let's go ahead and transition into kind of a spoilery talk about this as well as kind of an ending explained, and just generally my complete open thoughts about something in the dirt.

This is a movie that I think really kind of speaks to our time and as far as an ending explained, the explanation is that we don't know that's pretty much it as that's.

My interpretation of it I think that if anybody were to come forward with an ending explained of something in the dirt where they had a very solid, this is what's going on piece by piece.

I think that they would be approaching it not necessarily from the wrong standpoint, but from a slightly disingenuous standpoint, the purpose of something in the dirt is, we don't know and that's kind of what I meant by it's a bit of a statement of the times.

A lot of what was going on in this movie was coming up with wild theories based on very tenuous evidence.

We had one character that strongly believed in the gravitational forces and another character that strongly believed in the electromagnetic forces, and they came to butt heads with a lot of those theories together, but they still continued on for the wild ride.

In the end, it wasn't about capturing evidence from a scientific standpoint and then letting it speak for itself.

It was Finding, very flimsy, dots and then tying string together between those dots to come up with their own answers for what they think was going on and I guess.

The best example that I can give.

As far as supporting my stance, that the entire purpose of the movie is, we don't know, is the very ending when the character of John is standing by the closet and says oh, listen as if he's experiencing something of the phenomenon, either paranormal or whatever, and it turns out to just be the wind chimes of the Russian dolls down below the Russian dolls itself being a bit of an interesting visual, cue of one thing being inside the other being inside the other being inside the other.

And as far as everything that we saw on screen a lot of that, we don't know, I mean, as far as you know, the things floating or any of the phenomenon that we saw a lot of it could be just completely counterbalanced by the interviews that were shown.

The fact that you know it was on the sixth or seventh editor.

They were asking about doing, VFX shots, they did Recreations of their Recreations of their Recreations.

All of it was to cast doubt on an unreliable narrator, so so much of this film is basically taking the concept of being able to have a scrutinous eye and cast doubt where there should be doubt and that's what I meant by this is really is kind of a movie.

That's a statement of the times we have so much of society right now.

That is taking the dots that they want to connect together and doing so without taking into consideration the nature of perspective.

Truth, we see things on television and we see people that are saying well.

This happened here, and this happened here so clearly, they're connected clearly they're tied in with one another or clearly there's a causational relationship with one another when in fact they may not be connected at all, and we watch that and we take it at face value or at the very least it supports something we already want to believe.

So we choose not to scrutinize it further than what we're being told, what we're being shown.

Looking behind the scenes and analyzing evidence beyond the evidence, events nobody's providing bibliographies anymore nobody's, providing references, Source materials, analytical data or the backings of their findings.

They're, simply saying this happened, this happened and this happened and we can tie all these together to support our theories, and our theories just so happen to be something that we choose and want to believe.

Be that something that we want to be scared of, be that's something we want to be angry about and so on.

So you too should also be scared of this.

You too should also be angry about this and by the way please subscribe.

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Please buy my merch I.

Think that there's a lot of benefit to taking a look at this and saying why and in that the character of John really shines through as somebody that is clearly wanting to believe in this kind of phenomenon.

He belongs to a religious organization that we kind of get the impression that they worship and time uh symbology.

So on uh he has the snakeskin he has.

The courts and Levi makes the very valid accusations of him planting things.

So all of this, every single aspect of what we saw in this movie should be scrutinized and that's the point of it.

At the end of the day, we don't no, maybe I mean not in reality, not in actual reality.

I want to make sure that, like I'm, making a very clear statement that this was a work of fiction through and through, but taking that work of fiction, as somebody that you know watched it, you know.

Maybe there was phenomenon and paranormal things happening to these characters, maybe, but as long as the unreliable aspect of it is shining through, then it casts doubt on all of it and should create the very real statement of we don't know, there's nothing wrong with not knowing there's nothing wrong with saying we don't know, as opposed to always knowing and always having the facts that we choose to look at ignoring the ones.

We don't want to look at to support the theories that we already want to believe in so just kind of within the film's narrative.

I want to make sure I'm clear on that uh any other kind of paranormal phenomenon, or you know, symbology or anything that might show up like that, like, for instance, the street light showing 1908 on the timer for the walk signal could have simply been the VFX artist of the fourth editor that they hired for their documentary as they did their Recreation of their Recreation.

So that's the point of it is everything about this is unreliable and as far as any coincidences that show up like the gravestone being the phone number of whatever or any other of the instances in which maybe VFX shots wouldn't have been and so easily done.

Well, one character explained that fairly well, that statistically, it would be impossible for coincidences not to exist, and just because they are out, there doesn't mean that it's proof of anything I very much applaud this film and Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson for providing a narrative that is very thoughtful.

I think that would be the best word I could really use in this case is thoughtful.

It provides kind of an analytical approach to providing information that gets disseminated to the audience in pieces, as the film goes on to provide more and more theories to support their theories or evidence to support the character's theories while at the same time also breaking them down and providing evidence at the same exact moment to support the fact that their theories are fabricated or their evidence is fabricated and, in doing so, provides a very multi-layered experience that that I think will vary from viewer to viewer.

A lot of folks, like my wife who watch this with me, might just you know, go to the end credits and say well.

That was weird and move on uh, which is perfectly fine, I, there's no wrong way to absorb art, but me I found something a lot more uh.

You know deeply buried under the surface under the dirt.

If you will that made me really appreciate this movie I think it's going to be a little bit of a tough sell for a lot of folks.

Just because this is slow, it is analytical.

It is mostly reliant on just simply two characters following one another, with a lot of dialogue: heavy uh nature to it, which isn't everybody's cup of tea, certainly- and that's okay.

This perhaps isn't my favorite movie from these two, but I do think that there is some nature to it where uh, instead of having me kind of question or look up scientific theory, physics theories things like that and instead provided a little bit more of an introspective again thoughtful uh experience for me after watching and in that I really enjoyed it.

I love movies that make me think and kind of just rattle around my head and just keep me engaged long after the end, credits, roll and I think that that's one of the ways that these two filmmakers in particular shine so well and something in the dirt, is no exception to that.

So what did you think if you watch this movie, please let me know in the comments below what were your theories so on and so forth.

Do you think I'm completely totally way off base here and that perhaps we do exactly know what happened and that I? Don't know, isn't a sufficient thing.

I disagree, but that's okay leave comments below I'd love to hear from you anyway, so yeah that should about wrap this one up.

Thank you so much for joining me here on this video I, look forward to seeing you in my next one remember next time you want to watch a horror movie first, make sure that it's good and rotted, let's go foreign.