Film Review – Dark Harvest

Imagine if Stephen King wrote “The Outsiders,” with the film adaptation turned into a “Purge” sequel. That’s the general atmosphere of “Dark Harvest,” which is actually based on a 2006 novel by Norman Partridge, with Michael Gilio handling screenwriting duties. It’s a grim story of small-town tradition and mass death, glazed with fantasy elements to downplay everything that doesn’t make sense about the material, and the feature’s direction is handed to David Slade, who once tried to charm moviegoers with dark visions for “Hard Candy” and “30 Days of Night,” burying suspense under style overkill. He returns to unfortunate cinematographic habits here, but “Dark Harvest” is already in trouble by the time Slade lubes up his shaky-cam interests, finding the story itself difficult to buy and performances are mostly unaware of what kind of picture they’re making. It’s a rough viewing experience for the spooky season, and Slade’s general disinterest in securing a decent story or suspense only makes the endeavor harder to endure. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com