DARK HARVEST (2023)

 I HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA THIS WAS OUT! 

I know there was talk a few years ago that someone was going to make a movie out of this perennial Halloween favourite book but I didn't realize someone actually did make it.  The 2006 novel by Norman Partridge is one of those books which a lot of people love and some actually re-read it every year in October.  I also read the book several years ago and I liked it but didn't lose my mind over it.  The concept of it is awesome. Every year on Halloween night, a monstrous pumpkin-headed creature named "The October Boy" arises out of the cornfields and basically terrorizes a small town.  All of the male late-teenage boys are locked in their rooms for 3 days before Halloween without food before they are let loose on Halloween night for 'The Hunt'; they need to find and kill the October Boy before it reaches the town's church.  If they do so, the town will have peace and prosperity for another year.  The boys are released from their rooms and are ravenously hungry when they scatter and try to hunt down the monster; they're pretty much rabid beasts by this point.  And make no mistake, The October Boy will kill as many boys as it can as well.

The winner of the hunt wins his family a big house free from all bills, he gets a new car and permission to leave town.  Yeah, in this town, no one who was born there is allowed to leave the town due to a curse which causes this yearly ritual.  Every year's winner, however, never seems to be seen again.  The parents of last year's winner -- Jim Shepard -- say he's living it up in California; but there's something odd about how none of the winning boys are ever seen again.  Of course, there are a lot darker things going on than first meets the eye.  Like I said, this is a great premise for a book and the novel is really good; don't let me sound like it's not.  But I didn't lose my mind over it like many people.  Therefore, a movie of the book is not to me like an affront to the sacredness of the original novel.  Ratings for the movie are mixed; some people don't like it and some love it. It think that 'how dare you besmirch my sacred book' attitude is at work here.  But I went into the movie liking the book and OK with whatever changes/differences are found in the movie.  And I will say that there are quite a few difference between the book and the film.  Especially in the general tone.  If you're thinking this is some kind of YA movie, you're wrong.  There are quite a few really gruesome (and great) kills and the entire tone is really dark and grim.  But the book is the book and the film is the film.  They're two different things and I'm looking at the film here and, truth be told, I enjoyed the film pretty much equally to my enjoyment of the book.  It was pretty good with some really great moments.  Many of the scenes of character development with our protagonist Richie Shepard (Casey Likes) did tend to go on a little too long and, as they weren't particularly well-written or well-acted, that was a bit of a slog. 

But there are only a couple of them so mostly the movie toboggans along at an acceptable clip.  Also the monster design of Sawtooth Jack (the movie never uses the alternate name of 'The October Boy' sadly) is also not as frightening as I would have like it to be.  Again, like everything else in the movie, it's pretty good but not earth shattering.  One familiar face in the cast is twitchy Jeremy Davies (whom we know and love as Daniel Faraday from LOST) as Richie's father.  Director David Slade previously helmed everything from the incredible HARD CANDY and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT to one of those execrable TWILIGHT movies but here he does -- oh, once again -- a pretty good job.  All in all, DARK HARVEST is definitely good and worth watching but not earth-shatteringly awesome sauce.