I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

IF THIS IS REAL I DON'T WANNA LIVE IN THIS WORLD





The Fields (2011)

If you haven't tried watching the TV show Raising Hope, give it a try. Martha Plimpton's mangling of the English language, Garret Dillahunt being a lovable goof (which is really weird because the only other thing I've seen him in was as a murderous psychopath in the remake of The Last House On The Left) and of course Cloris Leachman. It's cool that some of those great actresses from years past (like Betty White) are getting a second wind so to speak as far as good acting parts go. Her portrayal of Maw Maw is the best part of that show by far.

That being said, she is sadly wasted in this horrid excuse of a movie. Any movie starting with 'based on actual events' tells me it's going to majorly suck. First of all, it is NOT a horror movie. Some call it a thriller but it isn't even good enough for that. It claims to be about a young boy staying with his grandparents but a supernatural unseen evil pursues him. Uh, nope. This movie is about how inbreeding makes stupid people in the state of Pennsylvania (not dissing the State, just this movie) in 1973.

A curly haired cute little boy is the product of duh parents who can't handle being around him 'cause dad's an idiot who can't afford a house (they live with her mother) but who can afford a killer '72 Mustang Boss and mom's an alcoholic who spends whatever's left of the money after his car payment in the bars. They don't want to leave him with her parents alone 'cause they molested him (wow, and they still live there). 

The father takes him to his folks house, who live on a farm next to several cornfields as well as a dairy farm. Oh I bet that smells nice. They warn him never to go into the cornfields but he must have been watching too much of The Walking Dead 'cause he immediately pulls a Carl and runs into the cornfield.  Oops, this is the 70's - most of The Walking Dead's cast hasn't even been born yet. My bad.


Other than that the grandparents (grandmother is Cloris Leachman) are your typical old couple. For some reason they have both of them spew careless obscenities that don't even fit the situation - it's like they were working for an 'R' rating ('cause nothing else is in it) and so just kind of tossed them in there. It was a major disservice to Cloris to have her play a foul mouthed hen picking grandmother who calls her friend's boyfriend a 'nigger' but when the boy uses it, she tells him to say 'colored'. How embarrassing.


Apparently the main 'tension' of the movie is supposed to be that something evil is in the cornfield. Isn't there always? How come it's never wheat fields or strawberry fields or... anyway, his first romp through the field he finds a dead woman. He casually tells his grandparents who laugh at him and he drops it. And she's pretty much forgotten until the movie punchline. 

The rest is him watching horror movies and being scared of anyone out of California because he's heard all about Charles Manson and so every hippie is now a potential killer. We have disjointed scenes, long LONG periods of nothing happening and okay yes, someone is in the cornfield (dead body, HELLO) but supernatural presence? Uh no. Someone is messing with them but it is definitely human.

This is not in the movie, but it's more interesting...

At the blessed end of this horrible thing we learn almost casually that an employee of the neighboring dairy farm committed suicide because he was going to be found out as the girl's killer. For some reason in several scenes they have him wearing a circus ringleader's uniform. Why? <sigh> Gives me a headache just thinking about it.