Something In The Dirt

Whilst Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's inventive lockdown film is full of warnings about how easy it is to get lost if one allows oneself to be absorbed by puzzles, it's also a film with strong appeal to people who love puzzles, mysteries and patterns. The directors are smart enough to avoid providing too many answers here, which would risk breaking the spell, but fans of the film will have the chance to explore its ideas with a lot of additional context. Particularly appealing here will be the deleted scenes. They're raw and unpolished - the audio is particularly poor - but they will still intrigue.

Scene Zero is a piece of test footage made weeks in advance of the shoot, and its use of stand-in SFX is cute, but the acting it features reveals that the tone of the film was already well established then. That was probably essential to getting everybody on board, as the directors explain in the Making-of featurette that they were mostly working with friends and that it was a challenging shoot which required a lot of innovative technique on account of the way they had to manage Covid protocols. They discuss their memories of it on the same rooftop where key scenes towards the end of the film were shot, and this is supported by clips from the film itself and a good bit of behind the scenes footage.

The VFX featurette is very short, but sweet, demonstrating how things were done visually rather than providing a lot of explanation. The trailers are fun, and watching them after one has seen the film itself highlights what a good job they did of drawing viewers to it without giving away too much of the plot. Finally, there is a stills gallery which is very different from what you're likely to be used to. It's wonderfully unflattering and perfectly captures Benson and Moorhead's humour, yet still succeeds in showing off the film's visual style and moments of beauty.