Something in the Dirt (2022 | USA | 116 minutes | Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead)
In a return to form for filmmaking partners in crime Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, Something in the Dirt leads us on a mind-melting journey that all takes place within a single room.
Benson and Moorhead have been making films for nearly a decade, though they first came on most people’s radar with their unique work in Resolution, Spring, and The Endless. Following that, they took on the bigger budget project Synchronic in 2019 which remains interesting even as it felt like a compromise of their typical vision.
Something in the Dirt is anything but compromised. It feels so authentic in every single aspect that it may lose some people. However, for those who can wade into the deep end with the film’s dream logic of a narrative without it breaking your brain, there is something quite remarkable to be found.
The film centers on the experience of new neighbors John (Moorehead) and Levi (Benson) who discover that a room in their Los Angeles apartment complex appears to be in the midst of some sort of supernatural event. A crystalline ashtray seems to levitate on its own, lights flash constantly, and there is a feeling that everything is just a little bit off. The two set out to document what is happening. In the process, you begin to question much about their story and how much of what is happening is as it seems.
Some of this is in regards to how the two men begin to distrust and even turn on each other, saying some of the most deeply hurtful things you could imagine. Both Moorehead and Benson are entirely convincing, making us really believe they have begun to despise each other. However, the story constantly challenges our beliefs about what is happening as it throws out small observations that complicate the film’s reality.
Much of this is in small cutaways or brief lines that pass by quickly, creating a feeling of disorientation that is quite overwhelming. There is much use of what appears to be stock footage that then is woven into the setting of the apartment building, making the story feel expansive and claustrophobic at the same time. It is cinematic whiplash, thrilling as it is terrifying. Just when you think you have a read on where it all is going, it will upend its own established order to go in a sudden new direction.
The pure nature of the unvarnished vision in Something in the Dirt is most certainly a lot to take in, though it also is worth absorbing at maximum velocity. It hits you with a force that will knock you off your axis of equilibrium, pushing you into uncertain yet unique new territory. It defies logic to become something that gets under your skin and firmly wedges itself into your brain. There won’t be any easy answers found to what is actually happening with the two friends, though the experience of sitting with them as their world slowly unravels is as odd as it is enthralling.
Something in the Dirt premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; it has a second festival showing tomorrow and is expected to be released later this year by XYZ Films.