Harvest Lake

It was the synopsis of the movie and the fact that it was labeled as a horror movie that initially caught my attention. It seemed like the movie could have potential to be something interesting. It turned out that the keywords here were "could have"...

"Harvest Lake" turned out to be a sleazefest dressed in a horror wrapping. There was so much pointless nudity and focus on sex acts that the movie was almost a softcore porn flick. It was just too much, and director and writer Scott Schirmer could have opted for a much more neutral approach and a more subtle sexual approach, which would have proved for a much more adequate movie.

The acting in the movie was good, especially taking into consideration that the acting talents had very little to work with in terms of script and story.

The storyline, however, was every bit as mundane as it was generic and predictable. Actually, I will go as far as to claiming that the storylien was sort of pointless, because all that this movie was about was showing sexual depravity instilled upon the minds of the young people by the otherworldly being in the forest.

"Harvest Lake" had adequate special effects, mind you that there wasn't a lot of special effects. The creature in the forest was sort of interesting, but it was marred by having a very low budget appearance to it. So a few more dollars thrown after the special effects department would have done wonders for the movie.

What was the toughest part of the movie to get through was the incredibly slow pace that the storyline was presented in. It just trotted on in a very monotonous pace that really had no ups or downs.

I managed to sit through "Harvest Lake" to the very end, but I found my focus, attention and interest in the movie hard pressed many times throughout the course of the movie. I was hoping that the movie would pick up and become better as it went along, but that hope was in vain. My rating of "Harvest Lake" ends on a generous 3 out of 10 stars.

This is what happens when you start filming a movie with very small budget and without a finished script. The "story" in the movie is enough for the first act, but instead of writing more story they just padded it out with shots of people in the woods looking for other people or just wandering about.

All characters are paper thin written with 15 seconds dialogue for some backstory, and that means that we don't care about any of them from the beginning.

Not is all bad though, the actors do what they can with the cringe filled dialogue and one of the toughest thing an actor can do is to look comfortable nude next to another nude actor, well they pulled that one off several times.

The setting is ( as proved many times before ) really good for a horror , or in this case mystery movie - but this one is far from a finished product.

Bad porn? the movie is neither what it suggest neither is it an erotic movie.I fail to understand the point of making this video? because it's not a movie, it doesn't deserve to be called a movie. i suggest watching other films than watching this and if you do, do it on fast forward, you won't miss a thing if you ignore the dialogue.

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.