The Harvest (2013)

Greetings from Lithuania.

"The Harvest" (2013) is a very well made small thriller. It doesn't feature big scares or explosions, yet it's simple but very intriguing story keeps you on the edge of your seat during the whole running time 1 h 34 min. Performances were very OK, especially by Samanta Morton - she's great here, you will definitely start hating her.

Overall, "The Harvest" isn't horror movie. It's a thriller about other kind of monster. It's well acted and very well paced - at average running time it never drags and is intriguing from start till finish. The plot is very simple yet intriguingly done with a one or two twists. Definitely worth seeing for one boring evening.

Fmovies: I have watched this one a couple of times to make sure I felt about it the way I did the first time I watched it, and I do. It's a slow-building drama with a lot of quiet dialog, but that makes Samantha Morton's outbursts that much more jarring and intense. Michael Shannon is able to convey a lot of emotion with very little action, and the child actors in the film do a good job holding their own. I won't give away any plot, as to talk about any of it would lead me down the spoiler path, but if you like a good thriller with a disturbing concept, this is worth a watch (or three).

It's not a "lights off" type of movie, and I wouldn't classify it as horror, but it's a tense thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction or The Gift. And, it's worth mentioning Samantha Morton again - she plays her role with utter abandon. You believe that she is her character and she's utterly captivating. While she does have shouting and drooling to get her point across, her subtle changes in facial expression and the scariness of her smile is awesome too.

The Harvest came out of nowhere for me. It's a film about power and deception, which makes for a truly fantastic film. This film gets well under your skin, making it a very effective psychological thriller, NOT a horror. The one thing I truly love about this film is that it gets straight to the point. It starts off fast, there is no filler, every scene has a point and the finally is epic and perfectly paced.

The Harvest really did surprise me. With such low user ratings, I was expecting something overly pretentious or just plain bad; both of these it was not. If there could be one criticism it would be the lack of suspense leading up to the unveiling, but other than that, nothing is at fault.

The Harvest fmovies. After making one of the most disturbing horror films I have ever seen (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), director John McNaughton focused his attention on other genres, making some competent movies such as Wild Things and Mad Dog and Glory, even though they were all far from the greatness of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. The Harvest, his most recent film, is an excellent thriller of a low profile but high impact, and, in my humble opinion, it's his second best movie so far. It's not convenient to know too much about The Harvest before watching it, in order to preserve its ingenious surprises. The first half of the film is an emotive and honest "coming of age" tale about two very isolated teenagers (one of them, physically, and the other one, emotionally) who start to recover thanks to the innocent connection they develop with each other. And then, we have the unexpected revelation which places the friendship between the teenagers into a more disturbing context, and from there on, screenwriter Stephen Lancellotti "tightens the screws" of the tension until reaching a very satisfactory ending which is simultaneously sad and optimistic. I also have to mention the fact that The Harvest isn't a horror film, despite having been promoted like that in some websites. Its screenplay doesn't rely on supernatural elements to create suspense; on the opposite its semi-scientific and highly pragmatic tone invites us to question the extremes we could reach under a similar situation, and that's the mark of a brilliant psychological thriller which knows how to get into our minds. Michael Shannon (who keeps amazing me in every movie I see him in) and Samantha Morton bring passion and total credibility in their characters, while the young actors Charlie Tahan and Natasha Calis also make an excellent work, displaying absolute naturalness in their roles. And we also have McNaughton's firm hand behind the cameras, keeping the narrative in control with elegant simplicity and quite an emotional effect; I guess he will never be famous because he doesn't have a distinctive visual style or an affected aesthetic eccentricity, but his solid work over the decades reveals genuine talent and artistic consistency... pity that those aren't among the main attributes searched by Hollywood nowadays. So, The Harvest is a film whose intimate drama is as fascinating as the eventual revelations of something more sinister, and I enthusiastically recommend it because of its ingenious screenplay, excellent performances, perfect direction and the dynamic between the characters.

Adventurous girl befriends a dying boy and uncovers a dark secret.

This is carefully put together and well acted by the girl and boy. The obsessive mother looked like she was heading for Kathy Bates intensity, but I think the punches were pulled in the end.

Problem I had with this was it starts as a conventional family drama and only ups the stakes halfway through, and even then it never develops a sense of menace. It's as if they thought the plot reveal alone would elevate the story beyond the Nancy Drew level.

Also the pace is pedestrian. The director gets the technicals spot on, but I guess the screenplay didn't give enough to allow the tension to mount.

The director won't really care what you think of this movie. That much he made clear in his Q&A at the Frightfest Festvial this movie played at. Whatever you think of an attitude like that, it shouldn't matter on your opinion of this movie. Which is really good. It's the script, but also the performances. There are a lot of gray areas that are filled with life here.

There is also a twist here, that you might see coming early on, or be surprised when you see it. Whatever the case, it is very powerful. So it's not when you know, but what you discover that will certainly leave a mark. In a very good way. And though it goes completely over the top towards the end, it still works ...