‘Dark Harvest’ Brings Small Town, Small-Minded Horrors to Life
If you believe in movies, every small town hides a secret. In the real world, that secret is more likely to have something to do with something similar or racist in the town’s history, but horrifyingly, that secret is always – always – something. much more sinister and deadly. The results are often gruesome and terrifying, with films like The Evil Messia (1974) and The Town That Dreaded Sunset (1976/2014) delivering thrills and chills until the very end. Norman Partridge’s 2006 short novel Dark Harvest is torn from the same bloody cloth, and its anticipated film adaptation makes it an effective and bloody entry into the horror genre in small town. Every town has its secrets, and for a small settlement in the Midwest in the 1960s, that secret was an annual ritual that was said to bring a good harvest the following year. Every year, a terrifying pumpkin-headed scarecrow emerges from the cornfield and heads toward the town’s church. Sawtooth Jack, as the town’s elders call him, tries to kill everyone he meets along the way, and that’s when the town’s teenagers appear. While the remaining residents hide inside, the boys are released with a large reward. while waiting for someone to take down old Sawtooth. (The remaining boys eat all the candy inside him ) No one is allowed to leave town except the winning boy, and the previous winner’s younger brother determines that this year will be the opportunity for him to do the same.
Director David Slade is no stranger to inflicting bloody terror within the confines of a small community, as his 2007 vampire horror masterpiece, 30 Days of Night, can attest. Dark Harvest offers an equally impressive and gory body count, and the film’s monster is nightmarish in its visual design, but Slade fails to make the city as realistic or tangible as the carnage. This leaves the film uneven as the elements meant to anchor the rest stumble and collapse under the slightest weight. But the terror, oh the terror, came. While Partridge’s novel creates a compelling atmosphere, the film’s period setting never finds its own reality. Most likely, it was because of the budget, but it felt like the characters were simply dressing up or participating in community theater. The people and the city itself may look like it, but they never feel it, and this disconnect pervades the story as it opens the door to doubts and questions – questions which Michael Gilio’s script refers to can’t (or won’t) really answer like. why are there only boys? What really stops people from leaving the city? Why don’t they call the monster Pumpkinhead? (Just kidding, we all know the answer to that last question.)
However, while Dark Harvest struggles to build its world through story and atmosphere, it’s undeniably top-notch achievements for horror fans. Sawtooth Jack’s creature design is an exquisite nightmare, like Halloween personified, from his pumpkin head to his spindly limbs and fast-moving brutality. He’s scary enough from afar and on the periphery of the frame, but when up close, he becomes a sinister host that tends to tear the teens apart at the seams. Slade applies blood at times, from spectacular facial lacerations to more traditional bleeding rhythms and combined with monsters, there’s more than enough to dig into here. The Shirley Jackson vibe hovering over parts of the tale add to the horror too as the film touches on the inevitabilities of what amounts to mob rule. The town forces everyone to participate — everyone but the families of past winners — and the ritual itself has taken precedence over common sense or free thought. Teen boys talk tough and keep a brave face, but their fear of the legend, and of their upcoming place in it, is clear. It’s treated as real despite most people having never seen it, and the power that belief holds over them is as relevant in the real world as it is here. Once they’re set loose, the masked-up boys become a mob of their own, bloodthirsty for Sawtooth but easily swayed towards bullying townsfolk and damaging property.