DARK HARVEST
Director David Slade’s new Halloween horror movie, Dark Harvest has moments of visual verve and a cool pumpkin-headed demon ready to wreak havoc, but a confusing back story undercuts the story’s fright factor. That’s too bad because this home rental release, set in the 1960s, looks great and has a trio of gifted veteran actors in lead roles. They’re probably here less for the script than to work with the director of the underappreciated, but truly scary vampire film, 30 Day of Night, as well as Twilight: Eclipse.
Based on an acclaimed 2006 short novel by Norman Partridge, adapted by screenwriter Michael Gilio (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), Dark Harvest opens on a Midwest farm town in 1963. It’s a place where the corn crows high, the boys dress like they’re auditioning for Grease and where Kelly (a winning E’myri Crutchfield), the only African American student in the high school, doesn’t dare dream of being asked to the town dance. All decisions are made by the Harvester’s Guild, the sponsors, each Halloween, of “the Run,” which finds the town’s teenage boys going a bit berserk in their attempt to hunt down and kill Sawtooth Jack (Dustin Ceithamer), a creature that rises out of the corn field each year to slaughter all it sees.
He who kills Sawtooth Jack becomes a hero and instant town legend. His parents are rewarded with a house in the nice part of town plus cash while the winning teen gets a Corvette and best of all, the chance to leave town for good, an option unavailable to everyone else. Gilio’s screenplay sidesteps details of why the townspeople can’t leave, or how they’re kept there, much less what exactly the town gets from killing said demon. A good crop, a la Children of the Corn? Dark Harvest is a film so riddled with anemic plotting (reportedly in keeping with the novel) that frustrated movie goers may give up in the first act, which has the added problem of being a bit light on action.
Be patient. Action will come, in a brief but bravura series of set pieces that begin with the town’s teenage boys being locked away for three days, without food, all the better, apparently, to turn them into killing machines. Channeling his inner Brian De Palma, Slade films the fellows from overhead, creating a montage of increasingly maddened youth, hungry, enraged, destructive. Released, the boys run into town, ready for mayhem, but they aren’t prepared for the reality of Sawtooth Jack, who steps forth, like a Close Encounters alien with a pale jack-o’-lantern head. A gaggle of guys hide in a storm cellar, trembling with bravado and then fear. Their collective demise, as a horrified little boy watches from a nearby bedroom window, is intense, and calls to mind the ferocious kills in Slade’s dazzling 30 Days of Night.
Dark Harvest never rises to such heights again, but its strong cast holds one’s attention. Casey Likes (who’s currently starring as Marty McFly in the Broadway musical of Back to the Future) plays Ritchie, who has invited Kelly to the school dance and promised to take her away when he’s victorious. His older brother won last year. Sitting in their posh new house, Ritchie’s guilt-ridden parents (Jeremy Davies and Twilight vet, Elizabeth Reaser) beg him to stay home. They know something about the Run he doesn’t, and if that secret doesn’t make much sense in the grand scheme of things, it at least gives the actors angst and outrage to play into the film’s home stretch.
The more compelling imponderable is how Luke Kirby came to play the murderous town sheriff, who cocks his head in disbelief at those who cross him. Kirby won an Emmy for his virtuoso turn as Lenny Bruce in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and is nominated again this year. If you hadn’t read this review, you well might turn to your friend or partner and say, “Is that the Mrs. Maisel guy? What’s he doing in this?”
What, indeed? Having fun, clearly, chewing scenery in the corn fields alongside Mr. Slade. You don’t get outtakes when you rent a movie at home, but Kirby’s would probably make for a worthy bonus.
Chuck Wilson