Between you, me, and the cornfield, Dark Harvest isn’t the best name for this flick. The best name is in the movie itself… I’d watch a movie called “Ain’t No Stop Signs on the Black Road”. I have no idea why that phrase stuck with me… probably because it suggested a far better, far cooler movie than this turned out to be.

Dark Harvest <blarg> can be compared to a lot of other flicks… but the one that came to my mind was Reverse Children of the Corn. Imagine a scenario where the kids encountered He Who Walks Behind the Rows and, instead of murdering their parents, they beat the shit out of the demon instead.

Specifically, the flick is about a small Illinois farm town that has a very specific harvest ritual. A jack-o-lantern’ed scarecrow comes to life and must not be allowed to enter a church on Halloween… so all the young men gather to be the first to take it down.

I love the setting, the theme, and the rural folklore of this film. I loved its 1963 greasers vs. socs setup. The throwback leather jackets, switchblades, and rumbles were really cool. The idea of the isolated town that nobody leaves, that has this harvest ritual that must be completed… it’s all very cool.

Too bad the rest of the movie ruins it. This is one of the most scatterbrained and muddled plots in recent memory. They are trying to play off a Red Hour or Purge theme while also being an argument about social hierarchies and sacrifice. They imply in one scene that only certain teens can be part of the ritual hunt and then it’s all teens? And then the cop wants to stop a greaser from joining but his dad wants him to but doesn’t want him to and then the cop wants him to? It’s all over the place and, if it isn’t and I messed it up, then it’s not very clear in its motivations.

Then there’s the scarecrow beast which is supposed to do one thing but then spends an awful long time doing something else (murder). And what you learn later makes those scenes make even less sense… least of all who stops it and what that implies. Plus, frankly, the design is pretty good but the CGI needed some work. And while it has some gleefully wicked fun kills, they look terrible.

The end is also deeply unsatisfying and left me wondering if no one can leave the town, then how do people move into it. And can they leave? And, just like a bunch of other things in the movie, I had to stop and think a little too much about the film’s logic.

This could have been a cool, dynamic flick that borrowed heavily from Stephen King and harvest festival folklore… and the setup really suggested something wicked this way comes. But it wound up mired by a murky plot with murkier themes and motivations.

Score: 70