This is a movie I'd been waiting to watch for quite a while. I missed it at the theater in town because apparently it played for a week only, at only one theater (and I do not live in a small town), and so I had to wait for it to appear on streaming, and kind of forgot about it. I wasn't sure quite what to expect because these guys make some weird movies, and I guess that is what I should have expected: pretty weird.
It's easy enough to say what it's "about"; it's about a couple of fictional guys making a documentary about paranormal experiences. But what kind of movie is it? It isn't really a comedy, although it is sometimes a little funny. It isn't really horror, although it has some of the aesthetics of horror. It isn't really a mockumentary, even though that is its basic structure. It's not a thriller, either. I don't really know! It's just a movie, I guess.
Despite not really knowing what I was watching, I did find it pretty compelling, and I was almost always interested to see what was next. It also had some nice references to various conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomena, and was one of the most accurate representations of how the brain works of the kind of people who get sucked into some of those spirals. Aaron Moorhead in particular I think did a very convincing job in his role.
There are some issues with the movie; it's never really scary enough, probably, to achieve everything it wants to. And maybe a little more finality and narrative structure; it's probably more a movie for movie critics than the average movie fan. But I think that ultimately, it just seems like these guys have a lot of fun making movies, and make the movies they want to make, and I wish there was more of that in the major film industry. In a lot of ways it reminds me of my earlier review of One Cut of the Dead.
Score: 7/10
IMDb: Something in the Dirt
PS: I haven't watched all the movies these two guys have made together, but my favorite so far is The Endless. I guess I have a bit of a soft spot for weirdo cults in some ways, but I really liked that one a lot. I don't watch a lot of horror movies, but if I did, that would be the kind I'd want a lot more of.
