Devil's Harvest (2003)

Struggling artist Daniel King (an insipid and underwhelming performance by Chris John) is invited by his childhood friend Natasha Carlton (a perky and appealing portrayal by the lovely Carol Kentish) to stay at her house in the coastal village where they both grew up. Daniel's bitchy fiancé Laura (an extremely irritating and off-putting turn by Lara Clancy) tags along. Alas, a dark secret from Daniel's past returns to haunt them all. Director James Shanks, who also co-wrote the talky and tedious script with Jamie Rowland and Matthew J. Coombs, not only allows the meandering and uneventful narrative to plod along at a painfully sluggish pace, but also crucially fails to generate much in the way of either tension or spooky atmosphere. Moreover, the bland main characters, flatly staged attack scenes, a crippling lack of gore, some tacky (not so) special effects, and the limp and unexciting climax don't help matters any. Fortunately, the always robust and welcome presence of Brian Blessed as fanatical priest Father Gabriel Norton injects a jolt of greatly appreciated energy in an otherwise quite dreary affair. On the plus side, the sharp cinematography by Shanks and Rory Gilmartin offers plenty of breathtaking shots of the gorgeous seaside country scenery and Richard Archer's ominous score boasts an effectively eerie chanting chorus. But overall this picture is far too clunky and poky to make much of an impression. An instantly forgettable wash-out.

The artist Daniel King (Chris John) and his mate Laura Peters (Lara Clancy) are invited to move to an old house in Cornwall, in Great Britain, by his childhood wealthy friend Natasha Carlton (Carol Kentish). Natasha has a crush on Daniel, who is an ambiguous man regarding his sentimental life. While alone in the house, weird things happen and Laura is startled and scared. When Laura meets the old insane priest Gabriel Norton (Brian Blessed) on the road, she is advised to immediately leave the house, since evil lived there. But the couple stays and has to face tragic consequences.What a messy screenplay and awful and cheesy movie this "Devil's Harvest" is! The cinematography and the camera work is not totally bad, but the amateurish performances of Chris John and Carol Kentish and direction of James Shanks, together with the terrible story, ridiculous situations and dialogs make this movie one of the worse I have ever seen in the genre. I have occasionally seen in YouTube a couple of shorts from cinema college that are better and better than the pointless and dreadful "Devil's Harvest". In the end, it is not a horror movie but a horror of movie. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "A Colheita do Diabo" ("The Devil's Harvest")

How in the name of decency did this film ever get made? One presumes the subtitles merely say 'awful' on every single frame of this truly dismal effort.Horrendous acting, woeful dialogue and the lack of talent from everyone involved in this nightmare make for an excruciating 90 minutes.Overall impression? A bunch of excitable drama students got lucky with a lottery grant and proceeded to make one of the most painful films ever made.This makes Hammer Horror TV shows look like Oscar material.And don't for a second think this falls into the 'so bad it's good' category. It's not even that bad.But the fart lighting scene is probably worth another look.

Devil's Harvest is one of two thematically similar films I just watched back to back (the other being Black Gate (aka The Darkening), 1995) that owe a strong debt to the classic "seaside haunted house films", ala Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), Lewis Allen's The Uninvited (1944) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz' The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947). They both mix a lot of semi-Satanic mythology with their relatively more hyperactive, modernized styles. This was the good film of the two.Daniel King (Chris John) is an artist who has just come back with his girlfriend, Laura Peters (Lara Clancy), to the small English village of Cornwall where he grew up. He was an orphan who was close to fellow orphan Mary Henson (Julie T. Wallace). Mary was fortunate to be adopted by a wealthy family. Daniel has had a much harder time of it, but Mary is letting him stay in an older house she owns, and she's just commissioned him to do a religious painting for the local church. From the beginning we sense (as does Laura) that there's something odd about Daniel and Mary's relationship, and there's something odd about the village folk, too--when Daniel and Laura stop in for a pint, they get the infamous An American Werewolf in London (1981) treatment. On top of all of this, it seems that the house just may be haunted, there is a local crazy priest wandering about, a local "evil legend", and Daniel has to run away with Mary to an exhibition, leaving Laura at home with Daniel's old pal Mike Taylor (David Snow), who may be just as fishy in his relationship to Laura as Daniel is with Mary.That all sounds a bit too complicated maybe, but for me, at least, this was a superbly acted, relatively taut film, with a great mythological basis employing the little-referenced Philistine "fish deity" of Dagon. This gives the film a thematic connection to Stuart Gordon's Dagon (2001), which was based on the work of horror author H.P. Lovecraft. If you're familiar with Lovecraft or Dagon, they give Devil's Harvest deeper significance by association.In fact, writer/director James Shanks seems quite fond of such intriguing, pithy thematic references, as they permeate the film. For example, the Cornwall setting connects Devil's Harvest to films such as Jacques Tourneur's The City Under the Sea (1965) and Hammer's The Plague of the Zombies (1966). These are tonal references, as well. Devil's Harvest has more of a late 1960s or 1970s Hammer feel than a contemporary feel--this could almost be an extended episode of Hammer's lamentably short-lived "Hammer House of Horror" television show (1980). If you've seen that, it's a good way to gauge if you're likely to enjoy Devil's Harvest. I loved "Hammer House of Horror".For such a low budget film (estimated at £800,000), Devil's Harvest has remarkably impressive cinematography. Shanks employs helicopter shots, crane shots, consistently unique almost comic book-like angles, and a lot of beautifully photographed English countryside and village architecture. The film also has very good performances from its attractive, young cast--even more amazing considering that the two principals are so inexperienced. This is John's first film and Clancy's second.Although some aspects of the story may seem less than perfect for some viewers because they'll seem a trifle clichéd or convoluted, Shanks keeps a relatively tight rein on a plot that could have easily become a mess in lesser hands, and he incorporates a number of very unusual, unexpected elements, including the nihilistic ending and nice doses of subtle humor. Like its 1940s haunted house by the sea precursors, Devil's Harvest's more Amityville Horror-ish moments tend to be understated. They're also often psychological and sometimes hallucinogenic.There is a unique subtext possible where much of the film, including the horror material, is an exploration/representation of strained, twisted and interconnecting relationships between Daniel, Laura, Mary and Mike. On this reading, Devil's Harvest is an examination of how deceit and subversion affect romantic involvements.