John McNaughton’s latest film, “The Harvest,” is a family drama with an unexpected twist. It recently premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival and the DePaul College of Digital Cinema. However, despite the shocking twist, strong cast and beautiful cinematography, the film fails to create a coherent suspenseful film.
The film is about a dysfunctional couple who keeps their young, sick son secluded from the outside world in an idyllic, small New York town. However, a new girl in town begins to upset the parents by wanting to visit their sick son. Instead, the parents would rather keep the boy sheltered. The girl’s rebellious nature to visit the boy allows her to uncover a sinister family secret.
The biggest concern I had with the film was the Hallmark-themed music that played in some upbeat moments of the film. To me, it did not fall within the nature of the film. The music made me feel disenchanted with the characters. When the upbeat music rapidly transgressed to serious, rapid beats that are meant to bring suspense, I felt rather confused as to the rapid transformation. The rapid transformation in music did not make me connect with the pace of the plot. The film is primarily a drama/suspense, but the music just threw a curve ball that toiled with the audience’s emotions.
On the contrary, the major plot twist was very well-orchestrated. Having seen multiple horror and suspense films, the plot twist was one of the few movies that caught me off guard. Luckily, the twist came at a time when I began to feel a bit bored by the plot of the film. The twist brought a new sense of attention to the film and made me re-examine the characters.
The main highlight of the film was when the cast and crew came to speak to some DePaul students about their experience in the industry. Director John McNaughton said that he primarily focused the film to be a psychological horror – the film succeeded to doing this to some degree, especially in the scenes when the mother became very hostile. Michael Shannon (who starred as the husband) spoke about how he became interested in acting and his experience on film and television sets.
One of the biggest takeaways from the Q&A session provided by the cast and crew was their Opinions on the differences between film and television sets. They all agreed that on a film set, there is more collaboration between the cast and crew while on a television set everything is hustled and the producers and screenwriters have all the say. Unsurprisingly, all agreed that there are fewer headaches on film sets over television sets.
Overall, the crew highlighted how the film was a bit difficult to make because of a mediocre script that took a lot of time to prep up. The crew’s honesty about this answered my questions about my lack of connection to the film. “The Harvest” is a mildly enjoyable film with a brilliant twist, but there are necessary improvements evident in the movie as well.