Straw Deaths: Dark Harvest

Are you scared of inanimate objects? Do you find straw scary? Do you think that farms are the root of all evil? If so, you are the perfect recipient of a nearly-forgotten sub-genre of Scarecrow Horror films. This all goes back to 1987's Scarecrows, an interesting little horror gem that I reviewed back in June. I watched this movie a while ago, but put off reviewing for a simple reason: there are three of these. I felt weird only reviewing one of them, since the other two sounded utterly hideous. However, there was a brief spike in the genre with Messengers 2: The Scarecrow. While I still have not seen the sequels, I will buckle down and review...

Dark Harvest

Our story begins with a bunch of random killings on a farm. Okay, that's an interesting way to start a film. We also get the first glimpse of the film's super-low production values with the bad film stock and crappy blood work. Bad blood effects in a horror movie- oh, joy. Basically, this farmer has used his dead slaves as scarecrows, killed the guy who found out and was subsequently killed by the police. We abruptly cut to a small claims office where a young man and his girlfriend are collecting a claim from an old uncle. He inherits a farm and decides to go check it out. Dun dun dun! His girlfriend wants them to take all of his friends, but he is wary of it. Why? A pair of them are lesbians and he does not get along with them. He's not a biggot- so he claims- but he just does not particularly like one of them. Of course, they all end up going and end up in the middle of nowhere. They find the old place and it is not exactly the Hilton. Then again, it is dirty and barely suitable for human life, so maybe it's...nah, I won't go there.

*

One night goes by without a single killing. Instead, we get drunken chatter and pointless padding. It is supposed to make them fleshed out characters, but it is frankly just dull. The only upside is a scene where the lead goes to get ice and runs into a mysterious woman. She is supposed to look eerie, although a long-shot shows that her skin tone is due to make-up that stops right at her neck. Good shot, guys. He learns the next day that she was apparently a ghost or something (they never really say). Him and his black friend (not to be confused with Stephen Colbert's) go down to the lake to find...some random nudity. Yes, this abruptly you get to see the man's girlfriend and all three of the other women either topless or doing full-frontal. Why? Do you need a reason? Unfortunately, this scene ends abruptly as well and that is all we get in the nudity department. Finally, we get some killing as the scarecrows go on the attack! We get a couple of them on screen, but this movie has a love for not showing you the gore. Bastards!

*

Our heroes hide out in the house, but that proves to be barely safe as one of them get stabbed through the door. Gee, I thought that the wooden thing would stop the blade! Another girl goes down as they scramble out the door. Of course, the film does not show the blade go in or anything. Two of them get strung up in the field on the pillars that previously held the villainous monsters. Oddly, one of them is dead, but the other is left alive. She struggles to free herself, which proves to be tricky with the barbed wire around her wrists. Meanwhile, the lead girl helps the wounded black man into the barn and goes off for help. She comes back a little later to find him dead! Wow, another off-camera death- thanks. She meets up with one of the few surviving women and explains the whole thing, only to be dragged off-camera and killed. Okay, this is getting old. It's not being dramatic or clever- it's just lazy. A pair of them make it to the car and meet the woman who was strung up, but the latter dies. After killing two of the monsters, our hero gets trapped and cornered, but saved by the woman (not his lady) who sends a really fake fireball effect at the monster. The End? No, the movie actually ends with Outtakes and Bloopers that just run after the credits with no lead-in. O-kay. Now? The End.

*

This movie is just bad, plain and simple. It's production values were so low that I thought it was made in the 1990s! Apparently, it was made in 2003, despite their crappy film-stock. Do I even need to comment on the acting? The three Scarecrow killers are played by two men in bad masks and overalls. Gee, those clothes held up really well for over 40 years of non-care too. Just look at these guys in comparison to the ones from 1988's Scarecrows and you will have a good laugh. The gore is laughable and barely-displayed. On the positive side, they covered their lack of quality with photography. On the negative side, they keep killing people off-screen! I know I might be harping on this, but it is a big blight in a horror film about death and murder. Fail. What makes it even funnier is how the people behind it are adamant about their film NOT being related to Dark Harvest 2 or 3. Way to take a stand, idiots.

*

Up next, a pair of film directors try to spice up a horror classic. Just to note: these do not involve as much singing as you would expect. Stay tuned...