Parents' Guide to Dark Harvest

It might be worth catching up on the novel by Norman Partridge that this horror movie is based on to fill in some blanks, since whatever ended up on screen is total nonsense. Dark Harvest is meant to evoke tales like Shirley Jackson's legendary short story "The Lottery" and films like The Wicker Man, The Hunger Games, Midsommar, and The Purge, essentially challenging people's unquestioned devotion to tradition. But the actual deadly ritual in the story is full of holes, with many frustrating questions unanswered. How is Sawtooth Jack actually created? Are there supernatural forces at work? How can he move and still have candy stuffed inside of him? Why are the boys starved for three days before The Run? (There's a painful montage of screaming boys to illustrate this.) When The Run actually begins, where are they all running to? Why doesn't Richie have any marks on his face after being brutally beaten up? Does anybody wonder why Jim just drove away and never came back? What is life really like for a young Black woman, virtually alone in a town full of White people, in 1963? These and other frustrating queries just stack up over the course of the movie, distracting viewers from whatever story is there -- and there's not much. The only saving grace in Dark Harvest is Luke Kirby as obnoxious local police officer Ricks, who's cranked all the way up to 10 the entire time. Kirby seems to have put some thought and energy into his work, and it shows. Too bad he was the only one.