Dark Harvest (2004) - Horror Monster

Dark Harvest (2004) - Its the Great Depression and every one's crops have failed because of the drought. Everyone that is but Elijah's (Paul Bugelski), somehow he has a green and robust corn crop. In fact it is so strange that the local sheriff comes out to ask him about it. He lets Elijah know that people are talking, wondering what is making his crops grow while theirs wilt. Elijah is not forthcoming but through the scenes we see that the secret is blood and magic. Elijah is bleeding people as scarecrows to make his garden grow. Cut to modern times...
Sean (Don Digiulio) inherits the same farm from parents he did not even know he had. He was adopted as a small child and had no idea who his family was. He is resistant but decides to take a trip to the farm with a group of his friends. The lawyer tells him it has not been lived in for decades and has 25 acres to it. He at least could sell the place if it has any value. So the kids arrive at a farm that looks like it is in the exact condition as we saw it in the 1930's scenes minus the color filter on the camera. Amazingly even though decades have gone by unattended the fields are full of corn, must be perennial. It doesn't matter though because none of the actor are good enough to notice. Nor do they know how to act, the stale forced out dialog is a combination of either quick memorization, or thinking about hurting the writers while saying the lines but nothing is remotely believable.
The veil thin characters squabble barely differentiating themselves from the others and nothing much happens as they look around the farm. When Sean heads into the country store for ice, he gets to have a long conversation with a ghost. She tell him and us the plot, no need showing then is there? He as the descendant of the murderous farmer will be visited by three ghost... no wait wrong story. The dead want retribution and he is the one they will try to take it from. The spirits of the past will inhabit the scarecrows and come for him. Since he has friends and this is a slasher you can guess the outcome for them. So through the night there is lots of running in corn, getting stabbed and making the ever so popular decision to split up. Sean watches his friend dwindle after stupid badly acted decision after badly acted out decision. When finally he and a friend survive the night there is the lamest ending line ever! Thank You writer and director Paul Moore
The effects consist of scarecrow masked and a couple times we get to see little glow in the dark eyes, some fake blood and entrails and a horrible CGI explosion. This film was awful, and I am one who believes there is value in movies no matter how poorly done. People did sweat over this even though the end product is poor and they should at least get credit for the effort.
Rating (0.8) 5.0 and above are recommended, In the Zombiegrrlz rating system RUN AWAY FROM IT!

The Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009) - Horror

The Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009) - The original "The Messengers" was a flawed film with a fairly decent premise that children are more inclined to see ghosts than adults. In that story the Solomon family through this device find out what happen to the former owners of the farm. Although not a great film it did create an atmosphere and focused the story on the teen and child's story that then included the family. In the NON sequel the Messengers 2 the entire premise of the first movie has been dismissed. The house is the same but that is the extent of the similarities.
It is a story focused on farmer John Rollins (Norman Reedus), who has a family makeup which mirrors the original a teen daughter(Claire Holt) and a younger son (Laurence Belcher) and a pretty wife Mary (Heather Stephens). This is where the similarities end, the kids are barely used in the script by Todd Farmer. The wife is the secondary focus but only as a way of driving the character journey John goes on. He is a down on his luck corn farmer who has a bad crop, lots of bills and a crow problem. He finds behind a hidden door in the barn a scarecrow and when he puts it up his luck changes.
Of course these things a a bit monkey paw-ish, the real estate guy from the bank who wants to foreclose on his farm, and the friend of his wife who wants to take her from the troubled marriage are taken out of the picture for him. Good luck for John but bad because they are both killed after seeing him. The stress is also getting to John and there are several scenes where he runs out into the cornfield and hears childrens voices. Is he losing his mind? Is the scarecrow taking care of his problems. Will director Martin Barnewitz stop swing the camera around him in the corn field?
Unfortunately the writing by Todd Farmer , who SO obviously has never been a farmer, gives too much away. Instead of letting John's story unfold and the audience try to figure out what the hell is going on, insanity or supernatural we get a character to fill in the blanks. Jude Weatherby (Richard Riehle) and his lovely naked wife Miranda (Darcy Fowers) are there to basically tell us exactly how everything works with the scarecrow so no worries about having to do any thinking.
The climax where a cross scarecrow comes after the family is so not worth the time put in to get to that point. Oh and it has absolutely nothing to do with that last movie. Nothing Nada. WTF! Stop, breath....
The story as a stand alone was not well executed as every time something is seen it is immediately used in the next scene and resolved, only the tractor idea made it to the climax. This could have been a psychological thriller about how stress drove one man to insanity but instead we get an evil scarecrow.
Rating (3.2) 5.0 and above is recommended Zombiegrrlz rating Skip It!