Film
Recently arrived in a low-grade Los Angeles rental, Levi Danube meets and quickly befriends his new neighbour John Daniel, who has been living in the building for about 10 years. He tells Levi his new apartment hasn’t been occupied for a long time. He quickly understands why when strange things start appearing in his home. With John’s help, he will try to make sense of them by filming every step of his investigation… Sort of a cross between Poltergeist and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Something in the Dirt is a story of everyday people trying to understand the unfathomable. The film’s approach, both playful and creative, dons the attire of a fake documentary alternating between characters’ interviews and reconstructions. An exciting mix of science fiction, paranoid thriller, and dark comedy, that pushes the envelope of what fiction can do. Leading figures of American mumblecore Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have always been able to transcend their budget limitations while mixing genre with boldness and mastery. After the horror love story Spring and the lovecraftian diptych Resolution/The Endless, they made Synchronic, an ambitious time travel thriller. With Something in the Dirt, the filmmakers get back to their modest beginnings and once again demonstrate their talent for doing big things with little resources.