Harvest Lake

I have really dug some of Scott Schirmer's other movies/collaborations (Found, Plank Face, Headless, Space Babes From Outer Space, and to a lesser extent, The Bad Man). This one, not so much. Actually, I'm shocked there are some semi-rave reviews here. I will say this much about his movies, including Harvest Lake: They defy expectation. This is apparently his arthouse/sex/Cronenberg film.

The biggest issue I had with this movie is that it's underwritten. What in the hell was this about? Is everything just padding to get to the weird alien sex scene? Scenes (and characters) go entirely nowhere. Well, admittedly, whatever the scene, just leads to sex. If you're expecting another horror movie... you're wrong! I guess I can give this an extra star for rampant sexuality. And Ellie Church is always a highlight in whatever she's in. Yet, I was falling asleep a couple times.

I think- emphasis on think- this was supposed to be an "erotic horror", you know of the kind that used to clog up the video store shelves in the days before the internet. You know. The ones where the images on the box were far more exciting than anything that actually appears in the film. I can imagine "Harvest Lake" has a pretty good box.

Rarely can a film have made sex seem so tedious. It belies it's relatively short running time by feeling interminable as you watch it- indeed time seems to stand still. And then it ends. Thankfully.

The "characters" are dull as ditch water, generally unappealing and not even particularly attractive. Eroticism remains elusive.

And they all liked happily ever after, Or something.

Have you ever watched a movie and asked yourself what was the point? Please don't waste your time watching this movie. 2 hours of my life I cannot get back. It was like watching a porno, but its background story wasn't as good... and it wasn't a porno. IMDb 5 lines of required review text, is too much to ask for this movie.

A slow-moving, low-budget, erotic, Lovecraftian independent horror with arthouse pretensions, Harvest Lake is set in and around a still body of water deep in the woods, the perfect setting for eerie otherworldly action. Into this remote locale comes one young couple, Ben and Cat (Dan Nye and Tristan Risk), Cat's best friend Jennifer (Ellie Church), and Jennifer's gay pal Josh (Jason Crowe), who are spending the weekend partying together in a cabin. Joining in with the fun is Mark (Kevin Roach), a stranger that Cat met on the way to the cabin. As the friends relax and enjoy themselves, a strange supernatural presence slowly affects their behaviour, increasing their libidos and reducing their inhibitions.

While Harvest Lake is a technically well-made movie, with impressive cinematography, a brooding atmosphere and reasonable performances, it's hard to see who it is going to appeal to: if you're heterosexual, then the gay stuff can be disconcerting; similarly, if you're gay, then the straight sex will probably be a turn off; and if you're a horror fan looking to be scared or disturbed, then the lack of anything remotely scary or disturbing will prove very frustrating. Much of the film consists of scenes wherein the characters wander aimlessly round the woods or talk about sex, all of which is fairly dull. The ending, which fails to adequately explain matters, sees the friends encountering (and having sex with) a one-eyed creature that looks like a reject from Doctor Who circa the late-'70s, only with more goop, orifices, and protuberances.

2.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 3 for blonde babe Ellie Church, who deserves better.

This is not a horror movie. I repeat: this is in no way a horror movie. The only good thing I can say about this movie is the opening scene with the bleached blonde getting entirely butt naked. That's the only noteworthy thing about this movie. I think the director put that scene in there to keep the audience interested. Otherwise, I would have turned it off within 20 minutes. Yes, it was so boring, without the opening nude scene, I'm positive I would have stopped watching 20 minutes in.

At the 30 minute mark, I realized I hadn't seen anything, not one thing, remotely horror related: no suspenseful music, no tense atmosphere, no villain, no one getting killed or disappearing, no blood, no screaming, no running in fear, no victims, nothing, absolutely nothing horror related. I didn't turn off the movie, but I fast-forwarded. I fast-forwarded to the end and still saw nothing horror related. None of the horror elements I mentioned above showed up in the movie at all.

As a result, this movie is mislabeled as a horror. It's a drama fantasy. So if you've been mislead into believing this is a horror movie, either psychological suspense horror with little or no violence, or a gore/exploitation horror, or any other kind of horror, you'll find no horror here. At all.

As far as being a good drama/fantasy goes, it's not. The only thing horror related about this movie is the typical horror plot: unsuspecting young people spend a weekend in a secluded rural area with no cell phone reception so they can have fun with booze, weed, and free sex. The acting is mediocre, at best. The director is flat and uninspired. The cinematography is dull and unimpressive. The dialogue is pathetic (Characters say stuff such as, "Like totally whatever, cakeboy"). And the story is all over the place and nonsensical. Instead of the token black character, we have the token gay character. So there is some heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual sex going on in the movie.

All in all, it is mislabeled as a horror movie. There is nothing horror related in this movie at all. It's a drama/fantasy. But as a drama/fantasy, it fails for all the reasons I described above. Don't bother unless you like wasting your time watching amateur cinema.