Indie horror filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have had an interesting time during the pandemic. On the one hand, they've taken on their most mainstream directing gig yet with helming Marvel's upcoming Moon Knight series alongside fellow director Mohamed Diab. At the same time, they've embraced the limitations of independent production under COVID restrictions to make Something in the Dirt, a quirky dark comedy about neighbors developing conspiracy theories around strange happenings in their apartment.

Benson and Moorhead have produced, directed, and edited all of their DIY-style feature films. Benson writes the scripts while Moorhead handles the cinematography, and they've both acted in their interconnected films Resolution and The Endless. For most of Something in the Dirt, they're the only actors onscreen -- Moorhead plays the burnout bartender Levi while Benson is the intense mathematician John. Their only co-stars are a few people on the street and several interview subjects for the documentary John and Levi are producing about their discoveries.

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Justin Benson in Something in the Dirt

What are these discoveries? Possibly a haunting, perhaps aliens, maybe an interdimensional doorway. There's strange music, weird lights, and what looks like some serious gravitational anomalies. The story's inciting incident certainly raises questions, which leads to further ones. As often happens with conspiracy theories, attempts at claiming answers can be dangerously wrong. The emphasis on math as a means to enlightenment brings to mind Darren Aronofsky's Pi, and the secret history of Los Angeles is stated to have been inspired by Alan Moore's novel Jerusalem.

Some will emphasize Something in the Dirt as a COVID-era film, not just in its production methods but in its claustrophobia and in its relevance to growing conspiracy theorist movements. While the movie is set in the present day, it doesn't really feel like a "topical" film. John and Levi's growing web of questions isn't paralleled to any real-life conspiracy movements.

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If you're going to spend two hours following two characters on ridiculous tangents, they better be interesting. Fortunately, Something in the Dirt's John and Levi make entertaining leads. They're messes of fascinating and unexpected contradictions. John's a gay Evangelical whose source of faith seems to be the end of the world. Levi's an asexual who somehow ended up on a sex offender registry. Both characters have mysteries they're trying to solve about each other on top of solving whatever's happening in their apartment/city.

By its very nature, Something in the Dirt is rambling and meandering, but in a way that's fun to watch. By the end of the film, there are many questions left. Likely, no two viewers will have the same interpretation of what happened. Conspiracy theory rabbit holes are dangerous, but Something in the Dirt captures what makes so many compelled to fall down these holes anyway.

Something in the Dirt premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Release plans have yet to be announced.

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