Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Straw Deaths: Dark Harvest 2- The Maize

Are you ready to feel bad for the makers of Dark Harvest?  Dark Harvest is not a good movie.  It's cheap, stupid and feels cheap overall.  That said, it's much better than this movie!  You want the story?  Here it is.  In 2004, Harvest was released on DVD.  Evidently, it sold well enough for the company that owned it's video rights to get more films made.  The problem- the people behind the movie didn't have one.  With that in mind, the company went out and bought a film called The Maize and called it Dark Harvest 2.  It's really that simple.  What is the plot of this movie?  A guy wanders around a corn maze- cue the pun- and looks for his missing daughters.  That's it- for 90 minutes!  If you want to see what Level 7 of Hell looks like, this is it!  Feel my pain and read on...
This is a maze.  It is full of maize.  Any questions?
Our hero has a psychic vision of his kids in peril and tries to warn his wife, but it's too late- they're in the maze!
The imagery of this schmuck wandering around a muddy, corn maze is so exciting that it gets picture-in-picture.  Kill me now.
On top of that, the D-List version of the Twins from The Shining show up.  The pay-off to this: lame.
If you want to get drunk while watching this movie (it probably helps), play this game- spot the lighting changes.  There's this...
...followed by this shot thirty seconds later.  Just to accentuate it, here's what you see within another thirty seconds...
That pesky sun sure is hard to wrangle, huh?  The sad part- this game still makes the movie feel boring.
 I'll take time away from complaining about how dull and pointless this movie is to point out it's half-baked 'serial killer' plot.  It's a pretense to explain why there's no actual action in 80% of the film.
After seventy-odd minutes, the plot comes to a head as the killer attacks our hero's wife...and just leaves.  It's time for a showdown...and more feet dragging...and The End.
Whoever wins, we're lost!  The plot of this movie is...wait, did I just call this a Plot?  It's a small part of a real plot stretched like goo to fill out 90 minutes.  A guy looking for his lost kids- it's a start.  It has to actually build to something though and really become something else.  It doesn't.  This movie is cheap, cheap, cheap.  Nothing happens, short of people wandering around and one guy in a Devil mask.  His role- a weird and cheap scare that goes nowhere.  The real threat is the killer, who has some cheap back-story about killing his kids and not getting caught...in this town of like 12 people.  Really?  The movie is Written, Directed, Produced, Co-Edited by and Starring Bill Cowell.  By the way, if you're the film's only Producer, there is no point in making yourself the Executive Producer too!  Bill Hinzman is proud of you, at least.  This movie is crap- boring, boring crap.  It has no relation to Dark Harvest- darn?- and just plain sucks.  Oh yeah, it has a sequel too...dammit.  Take it away, totally-natural lighting...
Next up, the other Dark Harvest film.  Is it a sequel to either film- nope!  Stay tuned...

1 comment:

  1. Lord knows every film maker's mission should be to make Bill Hinzman proud...

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