Beasts of the Field

A couple interested in cryptozoology and paranormal happenings are determined to record the first episode of their proposed investigation show. They assemble five others for a (dubious) crew and enter into the wilds of eastern Kentucky to find the mythological thunderbird, which they believe to be a Pteranodon.

"Beasts of the Field" (2019) is a micro-budget Indie that only cost $30,000. It was shot in mid-September, 2018, and the many rain sequences are the peripheral effects of Hurricane Florence that hit the Carolinas. Obviously, you can't expect much with such a non-budget but it's generally entertaining with several highlights, assuming you don't mind Indie productions with little resources and the corresponding limitations.

For one, it's genuinely amusing in the first half, before the situation turns grim. Secondly, the forest cinematography is colorful and well done, which will be appreciated by those who value movies with a deep-woods milieu. Also, Ashley Mary Nunes (Kyra) is stunning in the female department; and Savannah Schafer (Reid) is also notable. Lastly, there is a relevant moral to the story.

It's significantly superior to the comparable "Monsters in the Woods" (2012), which cost the same amount (not counting six years of inflation).

The flick runs 1 hour, 17 minutes, and was shot in eastern Kentucky.

GRADE: C+/B-

The only folks giving this above one star must be from the same homeless camp that they picked the actors from!? OMG I've seen better acting from my kids preschool drama class lol.

This is the worst kind of lazy, cynical content pooping (using the word filmmaking is an insult to filmmakers) with the end result beings so poor technically, it's tiring to watch (the only reason I did was to write a review for YouTube).

Underexposed video capture (using the word cinematography is an insult to cinematographers) is compounded by randomly dropping filters onto the poopage resulting in over saturation and further darkening of the image. There's actually a scene in the content poop where the people pretending to be actors argue about poor lighting. I found this insulting as it shows the content poopers knew enough to include it as dialogue but didn't implement it themselves.

Sound is terrible, obviously recorded using the phone mic and the stereo field isn't balanced, the dialogue should have been recorded in mono, or mixed down to mono. Music is awful and used throughout destroying any molecule of tension remaining after the embarrassingly bad 'acting', complete lack of production design, props and costumes.

In an attempt to be positive there's a stripper playing a scientist who has a very nice face, unfortunately I'm not a fan of (obviously fake breasts), for anyone wondering, they are not revealed, guess the content poopers didn't have $50.

The worst thing though is the people connected to the content pooping who have written glowing reviews, what do you think that's going to achieve? It just further demonstrates your contempt for the audience and complete lack of integrity, although as you are clearly not filmmakers I don't suppose that matters to you.

After getting rejected for their pilot, a team of desperate producers trying to get their cryptozoology show off the ground con a group of individuals to travel out into the woods to find a legendary creature only for something more dangerous to affect their show and threaten their lives.

This was a pretty solid genre effort. Among the films' better qualities come from the enjoyable first half that gives everything an intriguing and engaging start. Starting with the groups' rejection of their show and the desire to get it filmed as well as the duplicity they use to procure the crew for the shoot is a great way of starting this off, focusing on the desire to get their dream project together but being way out of their element since the obviousness of their sketchy business practices is never noticed or questioned by anyone. The more it carries on with their improper behavior and meltdowns that showcase the incompetent nature of their mission even more and just makes the upcoming encounters that much more fun. Once the film moves into the final half and their struggles in the forest to get out alive, there's a nice bit of energy that carries this one along quite nicely. Their single-minded determination to keep pressing on deeper into the creatures' hunting zone makes for a fun time as their sense of inexperience and incompetence kills off a group member and turns the action around nicely when a new, unexpected threat emerges which is rather fun. This leads to some intriguing cat-and-mouse chases that are quite surprising and unexpected as the series of confrontations by the various members of the group throughout the area provides some thrills and brutal action in the graphic kills included, making fine use of the forest surroundings. These here give the film some likable qualities. This one did have some minor issues involved here. The main drawback is the fact that the film spends the majority of the first half on that build-up about their incompetence about filming this kind of show that it never brings the creature into focus. Rather than do something simple like seeing it in the background without their knowledge or seeing it hunt animals or other people in the woods to break up those kinds of sequences can make for a rather dull time if viewers are looking for a straightforward creature feature. This lack of attention to the creature makes this one somewhat underwhelming at the beginning of the film when it matters and impacts our lack of knowledge about the creature overall since there's nothing about what it is, where it's been living, or anything else. The other slight factor is the somewhat confusing series of actions that carry out through the final half of the film. Regardless of the fun nature involved or the deserving nature of the scenes, the way it twists and turns around on itself comes off rather confusing. The shift in focus from the creature they're tracking to a different killer entirely is a bit out of nowhere with the change being somewhat out-of-nowhere and relies on inference more than anything else to explain what's going on as the series of scenes and chases that emerge here is never really explained. While some might be somewhat turned off by the finale which becomes quite cliched yet doesn't provide the kind of payoff some would want, these here are the main factors that drag this down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

The 4.0 IMDb rating tricked me into watching this film. I don't mind low budget films, or the kind of bad film that's entertaining. So 4 stars would seem like a reasonable rating. This film really isn't 4 star quality, in any aspect.

At first it looked like it could be fun, with the actors knowing it was going to be bad, and going to go for it. I even liked the fact the acronym for their show was PIS. But no, it's honestly boring, and bad.

The acting gets worse in a race to the bottom. You never see the creature at all. Which considering I thought it was going to be a creature feature disappointed me. Like even if it is hilariously bad, have the creature!!

The cinematography is so bad that they often don't get the exposure, and colour balance of the shots right. The sound is weird, and terrible. I've not even seen student films this bad.