PLANET TERROR

Ben Wheatley does not mess about. A TV writer/director who made his film debut with Down Terrace in 2009 and has since made eight more features, a short film as part of the portmanteau horror The ABCs Of Death, two episodes of Doctor Who and three episodes of US historical drama Strange Angel – to say nothing of the numerous as-yet-unmade scripts he’s penned and his pre-production work on monster movie Freak Shift and signing up to direct Hollywood blockbuster Meg 2: The Trench – he makes most filmmakers look lazy. And so we shouldn’t be surprised that he wrote “three of four” scripts over lockdown, and that the first of these, DIY horror In The Earth, was started in just the second week of the first lockdown, with the 15-day shoot completed the moment that government guidelines allowed.

“I was having conversations with Andy Starke, the producer, and we were like, ‘Well, this isn’t going to go on forever –