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Rural USA, the 1970's: After his parents (Tara Reid, Faust Checho) had
a row that almost ended in disaster and had him traumatized, young Steve
(Joshua Ormond) is sent away to stay with his grandparents (Cloris
Leachman, Bev Appleton) while mommy and daddy try to sort things out. Steve
is an impressionable kid, and the mix of his Godzilla-toys, reports about
the Charles Manson-trial, and the horror movies his granny lets him watch
influence his perception of the world. So when granny tells him old-wife
tales about the cornfield next to their home, he finds it hard to resist
the lure of whatever might lie beyond the first few rows of corn, where
granny tells him to never go if he doesn't want to get lost and die. Of
course he eventually goes into the cornfield, to find all sorts of things,
from a fresh corpse to an abandoned fairground, from a bunch of hippie
girls that look a bit too much like the Manson-girls to a weirdo (Louis
Morabito) who could be Manson himself. Steve tries to tell his
grandparents about what he has encountered, but nobody seems to be willing
to listen to him, they think his stories are only figments of his
imagination - until his "figments of imagination" attack, kill
grandpa's dogs, throw rocks through their home's windows, eventually even
use firepower on Steve and family ... I have to admit I am of
two minds about this movie: On one hand, it's beautifully directed,
manages to capture the atmosphere of menace that carries the movie quite
nicely, and especially the cornfield and fairground sets are as impressive
as can be. Plus, the film is carried by several excellent performances,
especially by Cloris Leachman and Bev Appleton. On the downside though,
the film is just not that well-written. Most of the characters seem to be
grossly underdeveloped, several storylines that seem to be essential to
the plot evaporate into thin air, others that are essentially of no
consequence are fully played out, the resolution of the film's central
mystery seems to be a bit on the half-assed side, and the many references
to 1970's pop culture get a tad tiring before too long. That's all not
to say The Fields is a terrible film, because it isn't by a
longshot, it just lacks the certain spark that could have catapulted it to
greatness.
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