The Scare Salon

Well, it’s the most wonderful time of the year (October!), so I figured I’d better start focusing on some more Halloween-specific media in the lead-up to the big day (although naturally, speaking as a longtime goth/horror nerd, Halloween is and will always be all year long). I honestly felt like I’d covered most of the good Halloween movies, but then I kept seeing recommendations for a 2023 film called Dark Harvest popping up on various lists around the internet. It was available free with my Amazon Prime subscription, so I decided to give it a look.

Though I didn’t know this going in, the film was directed by David Slade, who’s made some fantastic movies like Hard Candy (2005), 30 Days of Night (2007), one segment of the anthology film Nightmare Cinema (2018), and that cool, interactive Black Mirror episode, “Bandersnatch.” In the interest of full disclosure, he also directed one of the Twilight movies (Eclipse from 2010), but I won’t hold that against him because the rest of his output is so awesome.

Dark Harvest is based on a 2006 novel of the same name by Norman Partridge, which I haven’t read; a quick skim of the plot synopsis, though, demonstrates that the movie hews pretty close to the original story. The film got a one-night theatrical release exclusively at Alamo Drafthouse theaters, then went to VOD. And I’m glad it seems to have gotten some small amount of appreciation on various horror sites, because it actually is quite a good little film, and really got me in an autumnal, Halloweeny mood for sure.

If I had to make comparisons, I would say that it has elements of Children of the Corn (in the sense of being set in a small Midwestern burg with some folk-horror-type rituals going on), Pumpkinhead (specifically in the look of the monster), and even The Lady in White (since it’s set in the early 1960s around Halloween). There are even a few hints of the Purge movies as well. But Dark Harvest has a charm all its own, despite its obvious influences.

The tale is set in an unnamed, dinky-ass town in the Midwest that’s surrounded by dense cornfields. At the start of the movie, it’s 1962, and the annual ritual at the heart of the narrative is set up right away. Basically, every year, a monster called Sawtooth Jack (played by Dustin Ceithamer) is released from the cornfield to run amok on Halloween night. All the boys in town are forced and/or encouraged to participate in “The Run,” in which they don masks, pick up whatever weapons they have at hand, and try to kill the monster before it reaches the town’s church at midnight. Whoever kills the monster gets a fat check, a nice new house for his family, and a flashy new car.

Before The Run, all the participating boys are locked in their bedrooms for three days with no food, water, or human interaction. This is to ensure that they will be “hungry” and extra pissed off when they go out to kill Sawtooth Jack. The monster, by the way, sort of looks like Pumpkinhead as I mentioned, but has a more humanoid body and wears pants, sort of like a scarecrow. The monster’s gut is also stuffed with candy and snacks before he’s unleashed, so after one of the boys kills him, the other boys all dive in and eat their fill after they’ve torn his stomach open.

In 1962, several boys are slain by Sawtooth Jack before he’s killed by a popular teenager named Jim Shepard (Britain Dalton). There’s a big celebration and a Halloween dance to celebrate the successful kill (which, it’s implied, guarantees a good harvest), and then Jim hops in his new Corvette and burns rubber out of town. This isn’t revealed until later (and so may be a bit spoilery; feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph), but no one is actually allowed to leave the town unless they win The Run.

The story then jumps ahead a year, to 1963. Jim’s brother Richie (Casey Likes) is still living in the shadow of Jim’s prior win; his parents obviously think Jim is the superior kid and that Richie is kind of a loser. Because of this, Richie has taken to wearing leather jackets, slicking back his hair, and hanging out with a (frankly pretty innocuous) gang of hoods. He’s also saddened that he barely hears from his brother Jim, who is supposedly out seeing the world somewhere. The brothers were always close, but Richie feels as though he’s been abandoned. He gets postcards every now and then from various places, but there are only a few words on them, nothing substantive.

In order to prove himself worthy, Richie informs his parents that he will be participating in this year’s Run. This is technically against the rules; once one boy wins, the other boys in that family are prohibited from participating going forward, ostensibly so all the other families get a fair chance. Richie’s parents absolutely do not want him doing The Run, not only because it isn’t allowed, but also because he might get killed. Richie doesn’t give a shit about the rules, though, and insists he’s going through with it anyway.

By the way, Richie’s parents are played by Jeremy Davies (Ravenous, The House That Jack Built, The Black Phone) and Elizabeth Reaser from Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House. Just a little fun fact, there.

Anyway, there are a couple of other things going on in Richie’s life that aren’t helping his mental state any. One of these is the jerkwad town cop, Officer Ricks (Luke Kirby), who is always riding his ass for one thing or another; and there’s also a gaggle of bullies who are always giving him crap.

There is one bright spot, though, in the form of the intriguing Kelly Haines (E’myri Crutchfield), a recent transplant in town who seems to share Richie’s devil-may-care attitude. She’s black and it’s 1963, so you can imagine how well their burgeoning romance goes over, but neither Richie nor Kelly give much of a fuck what the rubes in this stupid town think.

After all the setup with the characters and the establishment of the town’s dynamic, the movie starts ramping up to Halloween night, and Richie’s plans to participate in The Run. I won’t spoil the movie from here on out, but suffice it to say that once the big night arrives, there are gory kills aplenty as Sawtooth Jack tears kids in half, rips the tops of their heads off, and dispatches a whole group of boys in an enormous blood fountain. The carnage is actually pretty fun, and is not perpetrated entirely by the monster either, as the boys themselves become more and more unhinged as the night goes on and start killing other townsfolk as well as each other (which is where the Purge comparisons come into play).

This was a really solid Halloween horror, with a great premise, a wonderful period setting, a grim twist, and sympathetic leads you were really rooting for. I’ll admit the ending went in a direction I didn’t expect that was (again, a bit spoilery) kind of a bummer, but upon reflection, I thought the ending was a lot more powerful than the one I was anticipating.

If you’re looking for a Halloween-specific movie that has that nostalgic fall vibe, a bit of a folk-horror sensibility, and also features copious gore and violence, then Dark Harvest is a good one to add to your seasonal rotation.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.