Dark Harvest
An unnamed town, an unnamed state, presumably in the sun-warmed Midwest, the fields full and unharvested even in late October when the annual ritual begins, the rise of Sawtooth Jack on Hallowe’en night when the young men who are brave enough or have no other choice risk their lives to prevent him reaching the church before midnight: should they succeed, one will be rewarded with the chance of a new life, but should they fail the crops will be blighted and dust storms will descend upon them and their families.
Hallowe’en 1963 approaches, and Richie Shepard wishes to be one of the runners, his brother Jim having defeated Sawtooth Jack the year before and departed that same night in his new Corvette never to be heard from again save for the occasional postcard, but there are rules governed by the Harvest Guild and zealously enforced by police officer Jerry Ricks which exclude both Richie and his friend Kelly Haines but their determination to escape the town won’t allow them to silently sit by come All Hallow’s Eve.
Based on Norman Partridge’s 2006 short novel of the same name, Dark Harvest is directed by 30 Days of Night‘s David Slade, starring Casey Likes as Richie and E’myri Crutchfield as Kelly, a rare newcomer brought by family roots in the town, with Twilight‘s Elizabeth Reaser and The Black Phone‘s Jeremy Davies as Donna and Dan Shepard and Glass‘ Luke Kirby working overtime with his insistence that he and no other be recognised as the villain of the piece as the prejudiced, bullying and increasingly psychotic Officer Ricks.
The isolated town an oddity, tall buildings built alongside the open fields to which they give way without any transition, it exists in a vacuum only partly excused by the story being set in an era when before cellphones or the internet when it was easier to control information and the minds of the young, the townsfolk raised on the legend of Sawtooth Jack and having nothing to compare it to, nobody ever allowed to leave without permission strictly controlled by the Harvester’s Guild, a body whose greater purpose other than to maintain order and ensure the continuity of the run is as deliberately avoided as any discussion of the origin of the ritual which dominates their lives and deaths.
Divided along lines of class, the Shepards having relocated to the favoured west side following Jim’s victory, and with casual racism evident in the attitude of favourite of the new season Riley Blaike (Austin Autry) towards cinema usher Kelly and Richie’s friend Bud (Alejandro Akara) Dark Harvest is more concerned with triggers than depth, playing like a checklist and with the grand prize already given away in the opening scene of last year’s ritual, the masked boys hunting the swaying fields under the moonlight and tearing apart the defeated Sawtooth Jack as though he were a grim piñata.
Richie’s dad ineffectual and his mom numbing herself with pills, it is never clear whether they are more afraid of losing him or of change, the stagnation of the town evident in the same prizes being awarded every year as the mayor delivers the same speech, the Dark Harvest a disappointing hybrid of The Lottery and Pumpkinhead which tries to place folk horror into a riotous spectacle akin to The Purge when it would have worked better with fewer characters better defined in a sparse landscape of the eerie silence of haunting nature.
Dark Harvest is streaming on Prime Video now
