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Dark
Harvest |
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Sean is an adopted man whose biological father dies
and leaves him the family farm. At the urgings of
his girlfriend, he decides to load up the car with
a few friends and head out to his new property.
They make a pit-stop at the town’s general store to
get some provisions and are warned by a crotchety
store-keeper that the farm is bad news. That evening,
the kids run out of ice, so Sean goes back into town.
He encounters a woman (actually the ghost of Sean’s
great-grandmother) who tells him the legend of the farm…
apparently Sean’s great-grandfather struck a pact with
the devil…in exchange for a plentiful crop, grandpappy
had to water his garden with blood, and to do this, he
murdered a bunch of farm hands and disguised them as
scarecrows. The woman also warns him that tomorrow
night is the Blood Moon, and that the ghosts of the
victims will return to make Sean pay for the sins of
his fore-bearers. Sean and his friends decide to
shirk off the warnings…and sure enough, the very next
night the scarecrows come to life…
to reap their DARK HARVEST.
There seems to be a growing interest in scarecrow-themed
slashers as of late. Personally, I think that scarecrows
are creepy in and of themselves, and having one chase me
as it swings a heavy farm tool would probably be one of
my worst nightmares. I’ve yet to see the likes of “Slash”,
“Scarecrow”, or “Scarecrow Slayer” (all of which have
garnered fair to terrible reviews), but after seeing
“Dark Harvest”, I think I’ve lost a bit of faith in this
sub-sub-genre. I absolutely loved the 1988 film “Scarecrows”,
so I held out a bit of hope for this one even though it had
the stench of being just another uninspired piece of DTV junk
that Artisan seems to be searching for under every fetid rock
out there…and that’s exactly what it turned out to be.
To be fair, I thought the back-story (which is illustrated in
a pre-credits sequence) was mildly interesting. There are
also some decent locations here that, unfortunately, no one
seemed to want to take full advantage of. As far as the
performances go, it’s a lot like watching your local community
college put on a supernatural slasher story…a boring leading
man, his chipper girlfriend, a British chick, a pair of
lesbians, and the token-ist token black guy in recent memory.
What’s even worse is that they all talk…a lot. If you’re not
completely bored to death by their endless bitching, arguing,
contemplating and stupid one-liners, you’ll certainly feel
relieved when the inevitable happens. I do feel the need to
point out though, that Jeanie Cheek (who plays Darcy) came
across as the only actor here who must have given a shit
about their performance…at least she’s the only one who
seemed half-way convincing in emoting any fear.
Another thing that surprised me about “Dark Harvest” is that
it looks like it was actually shot on film (something that is
becoming increasingly rare when you look at DTV horror these
days). I’m no expert, but it looks like much of it was
filmed in 35mm, and there’s an odd gratuitous skinny dipping
scene that looks like it was shot on old 16mm. The grainy
appearance of the film was a very welcome sight at first,
and should have helped the ambience…yet the camerawork is
mostly pedestrian point ‘n’ shoot. And if you are wondering
about the scarecrows…well, they don’t exactly look as
menacing as this one on the cover art. They’re basically
lumbering stunt guys wearing bib-alls a phony rubber masks.
What else can be said about this film? Not much, I’m afraid.
Stick around for the credits sequence where you get to see
outtakes of the further ineptitude of this production…you’ll
also see some amateurish gore that looked like it didn’t
make it to the final cut.
If you’re a fan of sickles and scythes, they’ve got ‘em
here…a couple of so-so impalings…a barb-wire crucifixion
that looks a little painful…a hilariously bad scene
where a guy is stabbed through a door where the fx crew
obviously cut a slit in wood. For the most part,
the gore here is pretty sparse and unimpressive.
I swear to god that I’ve heard this music used in
another film before…it’s almost on the tip of my tongue…
at first I thought it was from the movie “Offerings”,
but I’m pretty sure it’s not…if anyone figures it out,
please give me an e-mail…but anyway, it’s basically the
same quietly ominous piano score played over and over.
Not worth the 3, 4, or 5 bucks that you’ll shell out
to rent it. My prevalent feeling on this one was that
it was just boring and with no good excuse. I used to
think that there weren’t any halfway decent DTV horrors
out there...I’ve been proven wrong because there are
some truly entertaining flicks that come out of the
trenches every once and awhile. “Dark Harvest” fails…
it’s as simple as that.
Review By: The ScareMaker
