SOMETHING IN THE DIRT: To Live and Lie in L.A.

Most filmmakers would have looked at the numerous restrictions placed on productions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to wait it out before shooting something new. Not Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. They put their twisted heads together and came up with Something in the Dirt, a lo-fi sci-fi flick about two eccentric Angelenos who suspect that something supernatural is happening in one of their apartments and decide to make a documentary about it. A truly DIY affair—Benson and Moorhead serve as co-directors, co-stars, co-editors, writer (Benson), and cinematographer (Moorhead)—Something in the Dirt is proof that massive amounts of ingenuity and invention can still be found in the movies…that is, if one knows where to look.

In a Lonely Place

Looking to leave Los Angeles, Levi Danube (Benson) moves into a lease-free apartment in a rundown building in a forgotten corner of Laurel Canyon so he can tie up some loose ends on his way out. There, he meets fellow tenant John Daniels (Moorhead), and the two men quickly bond as though they have somehow known each other for the entirety of their dead-end lives. But one day, amidst the endless chatting and smoking that makes up their mundane lives, they witness something seemingly impossible: a large crystal that they have been using as an ashtray begins to levitate before them in a sea of flashing lights and colors.

Is it ghosts? Electromagnetic waves? A fluctuation in gravity? Levi and John become fixated on researching, diagnosing, and documenting the phenomenon, both of them channeling years of desperation and disappointment into this one strange thing that gives them hope for the future. (They’re convinced that their documentary on the subject will make them rich and famous.) But things get more complicated as both men realize that they don’t know each other as well as they thought. Hidden secrets surface, distrust grows, and soon, symptoms of insanity manifest.

Less Than Zero

Something in the Dirt rarely leaves the claustrophobic confines of Levi’s apartment. This makes the men’s descent into madness all the more frighteningly real—and indeed, it does harken back to those dark days in the middle of the pandemic when one’s isolation seemed to go on for eternity. The film is rich with a strange intimacy, in large part due to the setting (apparently Benson’s real-life apartment) but also due to Benson and Moorhead’s undeniable chemistry. When their characters meet, it feels like they’ve known each other for years, which makes sense, because they actually have. This natural brotherly camaraderie and the way it devolves into anxiety, anger, and even hatred is the heart and soul of Something in the Dirt, the human element that is so important for keeping the audience anchored amidst all of the supernatural shenanigans.

Levi and John’s descent down the rabbit hole of conspiracy and paranoia isn’t without a delightfully dark sense of humor. (There has never been a better description of Los Angeles’ strange appeal than “LA is like Halloween, but all the time.”) Yet the initial giggles elicited by watching these two lonely weirdos become obsessed with the rituals of the ancient Pythagoreans and the Morse Code they find inside a strange piece of cactus fruit gradually give way to discomfort. How many people do you know in your life who have thrown away all common sense because a random YouTube video or Facebook post opened doors to versions of reality that don’t actually exist? (Hopefully none, but in today’s world, that’s never a guarantee.) When we’re feeling isolated and without answers, the Internet has more than enough to provide…but said answers can do more harm than good. Watching Levi and John channel their disillusionment into such obsessions is all the more disturbing because of the real truth—and tragedy— inherent in it.

Something in the Dirt is presented as the result of Levi and John’s attempts at documenting everything that happened to them in that apartment, complete with talking heads and references to re-enactments. Other characters involved, including an editor played by filmmaker Issa López, suggest that not everything we’re seeing is real, that much of it is staged recreations of what Levi and John claim actually happened, complete with computer-generated visual effects. (Said special effects have a wonderful, homemade quality, and imply more than they actually show, allowing one’s imagination to run wild in the best way possible.) Contemplating this for too long threatens to send the audience down its own paranoid rabbit hole—did these guys see anything at all, or did they make it all up just to bring some excitement into their lives? Does the answer to that question even matter? Benson and Moorhead seem to suggest that it does not, and I’m inclined to agree with them.

Conclusion:

Something in the Dirt ends with a closing dedication to making movies with friends, and indeed, it’s harder to think of a more satisfying example of what a couple of truly creative minds can do with the bare minimum. Little about Something in the Dirt is certain once the closing credits roll, except for one thing: low-budget filmmaking is alive and well in one corner of Laurel Canyon.

What do you think? Are you familiar with the earlier films of Benson and Moorhead? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Something in the Dirt opens in theaters in the U.S. on November 4, 2022. You can find more international release dates here.

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