Dark Harvest movie trailer

Watched this recently. It's a strange one. 

The movie is set in 1963, like the book, and the basic scenario is the same, but it diverts from the book a lot.

Now, the book is odd. It's written in a kind of particular 2nd person voice, which provides a lot of the information, and sort of leads to a 'twist' or sorts. All of that is gone from this version, and as a result some other scenes that readers won't recognize open the movie in order to set up the concept. 

That's all fine and makes sense... what doesn't make much sense are all of the other divergences. Like the main character in the book, does not exist in this movie. He and his family are missing from the story entirely. Some of the aspects of his story are applied to this new character who is the younger brother of a different character in the book. It's just an odd choice. On top of that, the ending is totally different, and continues on to seemingly set up a sequel, or something.

It's weird, and those choices don't make much sense. I think it would've worked better if it just followed the original storyline more closely, which is not to say that the book is some great work of literature or anything, because it's certainly not, but it's lean and fast paced and makes more out of a concept that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to begin with than the movie does. 

But taking it on its own terms, the movie is ok. There are some inspired moments of gore and fun kills, and it has an ok tone, but the look is all wrong. Everyone is cosplaying in 50s/60s sitcom costumes, but the aesthetic of the movie is so digital and modern. It looks all choppy and shiny like every poorly made straight-to-netflix movie of the last few years. There's no effort to make it look like the 60s in the filmmaking of it at all. Some of the performances are ok, but some are pretty bad. Nobody stands out as being particularly good, but the sheriff lays on his evil-small-town-sheriff routine so thick and so unsubtly that it veers into parody.

Anyway, this is fine for a straight to digital release. It's nothing special, and even had it followed the book more closely it stilly probably wouldn't have been particularly memorable, but I still think it would have fared better as the changes do nothing to improve upon the source material. David Slade is a good filmmaker with a good idea, but he's clearly been hindered by the budget and the screenplay here. It's worth a look as a curiosity if you enjoyed the book or for anyone that likes this kind of atmosphere, but for anyone who is looking for a faithful adaptation, I think it will be a big disappointment.