My advice to any young people is to never inherit any property. Your excitement for your unexpected luck in life will quickly turn to terror when you discover the family curse which has ripped through the bloodline for generations, the family lunatic whose been locked away in a secret basement, the family ghosts who need you as a sacrifice to get back into this realm, the family who faked their deaths to get their hands on the inheritance or (in this case) the family scarecrow who is more than happy to slaughter. On top of the pants-shitting terror you have to endure, if you’re young enough, you’ve probably brought a gaggle of friends with you and now their lives are forfeit all because your dumbass couldn’t tell that no matter how free something seems, there’s always a cost to the riches an unknown family member left ya. The dope this time out goes by the name of Sean (who resembles Jon Bernthal’s younger, less-talented brother… we’ll call him Don Bernthal) and Sean has been left some farmland with a sinister past. Back in the 30s, when a horrible drought was plaguing the area, the place had one hell of a booming crop. It was thanks to human sacrifice and the discovery of said sacrifice led to the town sheriff taking a shotgun blast to the chest and the farm owner being gunned down shortly after. So now Sean has inherited this place from a biological father he never knew and because Sean decided to not listen to me, he takes his buddies (well, his girlfriend’s buddies) out to twenty-five acres of land in West Virginia. Not how I’d choose to spend my last week of summer but I’m not big on bugs and well water. I also wouldn’t spend that amount of time with a group of people that seem to barely tolerate each other but this is an early aughts horror flick and for some reason every filmmaker believed friends were people you wanted to strangle. The locals warn Sean that the property is best avoided and that his grand pappy had some demons of the literal variety. With the harvest moon in full effect, killer scarecrows begin wiping out the dopes because it’s time for retribution or some shit. At about fifty minutes, Sean realizes the shit-storm they’re in but it’s too little too late because the pretty cool-lookin’ cheap-ass scarecrows are making their presence felt and introducing scythes (and other sharp farming equipment) to warm flesh. “Spicing” things up along the dull path to the climactic scarecrow slaughter are vanishing octogenarians, stilted dialogue delivery, bare butts, natural bewbs, a disgusting swimming hole which will definitely lead to a UTI, believable lesbians, domestic beer drinking and a general lack of any action that plagues a lot of movies of this ilk. It’s kind of boring but the friends actually become closer as things spiral out of control and those last thirty minutes are some cheap fun. One character toasts “To Sean! Our intense, weird, not-so-fun but good friend.” I would say “To Dark Harvest! Our dull, somehow fun and amateur (but still worth watching) friend.”
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