Director Ben Wheatley has charted an idiosyncratic course throughout his career, careening wildly from bizarre early genre exercises like Kill List and A Field In England, to the wildly ambitious J.G. Ballard adaptation High-Rise, to the near-cartoon action of 2016's Free Fire. His upcoming slate of projects doesn’t look any less wide-ranging, either; his take on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is currently in post-production, and he’s gearing up right now to film the second Alicia Vikander Tomb Raider movie.
Wheatley is a tricky guy to pin down, is our point, so it’s not wholly surprising to learn that he’s managed to sneak a whole other movie into his current quarantine routine, before diving head-first into blockbuster land. This is per IndieWire, which reports on an interview Wheatley recently gave to Little White Lies, confirming that he shot a new horror movie over the course of 15 days recently, amidst the current lockdowns
Wheatley doesn’t give away any plot details or casting info about the movie, but did describe the film (which he shot in August) as “a response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis,” and an effort to make a micro-budget horror movie that reflects our current, rapidly shifting reality. Given Wheatley’s general unpredictability, there’s no way to know when, if ever, the film will ever see the light of day, but the idea of it being out there, ready to explode into a new burst of (non-immediately lethal) strangeness does hold a certain appeal. Tomb Raider 2, meanwhile, is currently penciled in for a 2021 release date, and will reflect a reality in which Ben Wheatley makes a movie about Alicia Vikander shooting dudes in the face with a bow and arrow.
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I liked High-Rise, in that it re-established my belief that you can’t believe reviews -all- the time. Am I gonna watch it again? Probably not. But it played into a weird sense of memory for me, growing up watching Nickelodeon when it was just random cartoons and BBC and CBC shows in the early 1980’s. I understood the strangeness and sense of isolation (what I interpreted) from those shows. They were usually all 1970’s-early 80’s BBC productions, and it was illuminating to a 7 year old Rogue to watch those live action shows, and then have animated Danger Mouse come on. Danger Mouse is still awesome.Rambling aside, I’m really looking forward to seeing what this is going to be.
You may be interested to know that they have rebooted Danger Mouse, and it’s not only not-a-travesty, it’s as meta-anarchic as it ever was.
I rewatched it not that long ago and still really liked it. It has its flaws, no doubt, but there’s just something so disgustingly base and visceral about it.It’s one of those cases where not only do I think the reviews didn’t quite come at it from the right angle, but where I actually think a lot of them just regurgitated stuff they’d read elsewhere (which, as I’m sure we all know, happens a lot… one publication will establish a tone or theme, and everyone else will just follow suit instead of stopping to go “actually, I think that’s wrong, so here’s my take instead”).
Turkey Television, anyone?
High-Rise will grow in esteem, hopefully people will check it out on Hulu, Hoopla, or Kanopy (those last two are free through most libraries). I think some day Criterion will put it out, hopefully in a set with “Crash” and “Empire of the Sun”…has anybody seen the film of “Atrocity Exhibition”?God I hope Wheatley casts Michael Smiley as the bad guy in the next Tomb Raider, those two work so well together
I liked High-Rise as well and share your feeling about not sure if I will ever rewatch it again.
Yeah I never really got this guy. Sightseers was maybe one of the most disappointing movies I’ve ever watched.
He also made a very good film for the BBC entitled Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, which screened last Christmas, and which had the magnificent shooting title Colin, You Anus!
I’ve wanted to see that but can’t seem to find it streaming anywhere.
Why in the Hell is he bothering with a Tomb Raider sequel? I’m hoping it doesn’t happen like Fincher’s WWZ sequel.