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April 07, 2007

Dark Harvest 2: The Maize

Or why Rufus hates whoever made him watch this shit

By Rufus

This is the Halloween 3 of killer scarecrow movies. There's a killer scarecrow on the front of the DVD, there's a killer scarecrow on both sides of the packaging, and there's a scarecrow looking hand holding a scythe on the DVD menu. That must mean the movies about killer scarecrows (especially because Dark Harvest 1 and 3 are about killer scarecrows) right? Wrong. There is no killer scarecrow in the film. There isn't even a nice scarecrow in the film. There are laughing pumpkins for some reason but no killer scarecrow. Instead we get a movie about a guy in a corn maze (maize get it? ha fucking ha) running around for an hour looking for his daughters.

This has to be the most inept movie I've ever seen, and I've seen some terrible movies. Most of you got lucky and watched some good bad movies...Bill and Ted? I mean come on. Next blog-a-thon we have to watch truly terrible films like Dark Harvest 2. Just so you have to share in my torture. This movie was shot on what looks like a low end consumer DV camera, edited in Final Cut Pro (or even iMovie...I wouldn't be surprised), and the soundtrack sounds like they just threw together some instruments on Garage Band and tacked it on. The last 40 minutes or so was lit alternatively by flashlights or the light on the top of the camera and anytime there was a zoom or pan, it was either shaky or the focus went in and out...were they filming on autofocus? I think so. Seriously it's like the movies you made with your friends when you were in high school and bored. My left nut could probably make a better film than this. Yet somehow it got a distribution deal with Lionsgate...way to go Lionsgate, you guys picked a real winner. Whoever signed this deal should be drawn and quartered publicly as a warning to the rest of Hollywood.

On to the movie. Well the entire opening credits are over random shots of a corn field with these annoying black wipes and transitions that reveal the credits. These little black rectangles fly across the screen and reveal that the Bill Cowell is a man who should never be allowed within a mile of a camera or a consumer editing program for the rest of his life. Consider yourself served Bill. On the behalf of anyone with a remote interest in making and or watching films of any kind I'm officially serving you a restraining order. I knew I was in for a treat when the same man stars, directs, writes, produces, is the assistant editor, and the assistant cinematographer (and I use that term loosely). Looking at the credits at the end his wife does some of the makeup and the editor serves as the de-fogger while the fogger is the assistant director. Why do we need a fogger and a de-fogger? Well this is a horror movie and someone on the crew had a fog machine in their garage and figured hey lets put in so much fog in some scenes that the characters literally blow it out of their mouths like fucking cigarette smoke. Holy shit this movie is bad.

There is little to no lighting and obviously no tripod as all shots (even the pans) are handheld. There is also a promise of Max the Killer Watchdog. I thought maybe this movie will be saved after all. But Max spends the movie tied up and barking at everyone even the Killer. Stupid fucking promises...Max sucks. Also the zooms are obviously zoom button zooms, and are really fucking annoying. So back to the umm story. There is a maze and two girls disappeared in it a year or so ago and the main character (Shy Walker...although everyone calls him Walker even his wife) figures that his daughters (who are at the maze) are in danger. How does he know this? Oh yeah he's psychic. How do I know this? The Final Cut ripple digital effect appears in front of his face...everytime he thinks hard.

So he goes to the maze and spends the rest of the movie running through the same rows of corn screaming out the girls' names. He meets the ghosts of the two girls who are basically ripoffs of the kids in The Shining because they talk together at the same time (or try to...my dog could act better than any of the kids in this film.) That's right I'm picking on the kid actors. I don't care...they should've had enough sense to have not been in this movie. I mean one of their names is Betty Netty, I would've thought that was stupid when I was 12. I don't know about you. Some random things happen like laughing pumpkins suddenly surround him and I thought it might just be non-diegetic to heighten the ‘tension' until he fights one and proclaims "Who's laughing now." Yes he fights a pumpkin. He also fights the cops who show up because he beats up a kid who works in the corn maze trying to scare people. There is lots of fog, and red lights and more bad acting.

At about 25 minutes into the movie I started thinking of what I'd rather be doing than watching this movie. I'd rather have my eyes poked out with a rusty fork and roasted over a Bunsen burner. I'd rather be in a gangbang with Sally Fields and Burt Reynolds (Thanks for that mental image Ben). I'd rather put my nuts on a table and bang them shits with a spiked hammer over and over and over...(thanks Method Man). Remember that knife dildo from Seven? Well maybe not that but it would be a very close choice.

So the whole movie is essentially him running around calling their names and most of it we can't really see well because its filmed by flashlight and the light mounted on the camera. He eventually figures out the guy going after his girls (seen mostly only as muddy yellow rain boots and an iron pipe) is the one who killed the other girls. How? Oh yeah thinking hard produces the psychic ripple. I wish that worked in real life. He then calls him out with the best dialogue in the movie "HEY YOU MR. BADMAN (oh yeah that's right he went there...where's he gonna go next?) YEAH I'M TALKING TO YOU. YOU COWARDICE LAMEASS." (oooooh snap game over...the killer better run back home to his mama.) This whole bit of macho posturing is done while holding one of the laughing pumpkins above his head and he proceeds to go dig a hole with the pumpkin. I thought he was going to bury it. But he uses it as a trap to trick Mr. Badman. Who he knocks out with a shovel. Then he rescues the girls and sends them off to their mother before going back to beat the guy to death with an iron pipe...because you know he's gone through a lot and he's a dark hero. Who thinks hard and gets a case of the ripples... on second thought that knife dildo doesn't sound so bad.

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