Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, a duo that handles every aspect of filmmaking, have released the official trailer for their sixth feature film, Something in the Dirt. The two-minute trailer, like the one before it, is a fever dream that implies the pair has once again made something that straddles the line between an independent art film and a spooky science fiction thriller. XYZ Films, the studio behind such hits as Piggy and the upcoming Tom Hardy action flick Havoc, now offers Something in the Dirt, the next film from writer-directors Moorhead and Benson. In an interview, Benson and Moorhead described the film’s premise as a “stoner comedy” with “an obsessive rabbit hole-ish dark mystery.”
The story follows Levi (Benson) and John (Moorhead), two new neighbours in a Hollywood Hills apartment building, as they investigate a series of unexplained occurrences within their building. Levi and John may have gotten in over their heads with their strange discoveries due to their desire to make money off of capturing evidence of the otherworldly. The trailer is a strange two minutes of touching images that reveal just enough of the narrative without giving too much away. As Levi and John agree to work together to capture visual proof of the unexplained incidents they’ve experienced, the teaser shows the dusty, smoky sky of Los Angeles as a backdrop.
They say a tablet they found seems to map out the city, yet in between explanations of its significance, there are frightening cuts of the very banal, like a row of water metres and the dirt beneath a home. In a decrepit apartment in Los Angeles, where they first hear that there could be portals to other dimensions in the area, the camera zooms in on dilated eyes and flashes mathematical figures and symbols. The whole scope of what these two have uncovered is never revealed, but while Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9” booms in the background, we witness flames, blood, and explosions. The imaginations of Moorhead and Benson, who also gave us the imaginative horrors of Spring and The Endless, and the more recent Synchronic, appear to have crafted yet another cinematic abnormality.
This latest endeavour is a far cry from the two highly polished Disney+ shows that the team helped develop, and yet they both act as co-writers, directors, stars, and editors. After teaming together on the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Moon Knight, the two writers explored pseudoscience and otherworldly events in their latest project, Something in the Dirt. Both directors are planning to direct episodes of Loki Season 2 as their next excursion into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. The psychedelic quality of their prior work should carry over into those new episodes. Sarah Adina Smith, who plays Dr Rita Miller, joins Moorhead and Benson in the cast. Director Wanjiru M. Njendu, Vinny Curran, who worked with the two on Spring (2014), and The Black Phone, Doctor Strange, and Sinister author C. Robert Cargill all make appearances. Credited as the Radio Host was Robert Cargill.
On November 4th, you can see Something in the Dirt in cinemas.