‘Earwig’ (2022) Review: A Ponderous Horror Movie that Eats Away the Runtime
In Earwig, a miserable middle-aged man takes care of a young girl with ice cubes for teeth. This is an eerie, atmospheric and creepy film — Lucile Hadžihalilović knows how to make her audience uncomfortable. Since last year, body horror, as a genre, has been making waves in the industry, with Julia Ducournau’s Titane and David Cronenberg’s Crime of the Future, which show grotesque forms of violence toward the human body. While Earwig is a body horror that might be different, with a simple yet strong premise, there are a few issues with the film's overall presentation.
Albert (Paul Hilton) lives in a flat and his job is to take care of a young girl named Mia (Romane Hemelaers) with ice cube dentures for teeth. Every night, he prepares the dentures to be replaced and removes a contraption attached to her lower jaw, which collects saliva in two glass capsules, one below each cheek. She spends her days running around the house, isolated from the outside world and flies her kite made with newspaper bits. Every day, he receives a phone call from a man asking about Mia’s progress and updates the gruff voice on the other end of the line. Later, the routine starts to change. The man calls Albert and instructs him to take Mia outside to familiarise her with the outside world.
It would not be completely accurate to say that nothing happens in Earwig, but that isn’t far from the truth. While the premise sounds interesting, the director centres on the miserable Albert as the central character and nothing progresses while there seems to be something intriguing about him. Hadžihalilović creates interesting sequences shrouded with mystery, but she doesn’t know what to do with them. The first 23-minutes of the film have no dialogue and while that is not an issue — the journey that Albert goes through can be expressed without dialogue. His routine is filled with tired nights and frustrations about taking care of Mia. Their relationship is not established in the film and to the viewer. This mystery doesn’t help viewers to understand the premise or the characters’ emotions.
An issue with Earwig, apart from the mystery that hurts the development of the movie, the pace is too much to handle. It isn’t necessary to make the movie this long — 1 hour and 45 minutes — with its continuous repetition and the lack of exploration of the characters. It has a strong premise, but the rest of the elements are weak and the movie eats away the runtime so painfully that it’s hard to pay attention to what is happening in the movie. Earwig had the potential to be an interesting movie, with a mysterious concept, but it’s beyond conceivable for all the wrong reasons.
