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Story:
A group of teens go camping near a lake inhabited by a demon brought to life by a Cherokee elder during the Trail of Tears.
Comments:
So as the story goes, a Cherokee elder dabbled a little with black magic during the Trail of Tears and conjured demons that can only be released when someone touches a rock with a picture of a man on it and other demons mimicking certain animals. Well Mikki and her friends go to the lakeside where the Cherokee elder did his dark deeds and before you know it someone touches one of the stones and is possessed by one of the creatures. As a chain of events, people start getting bitten, ripped apart, and turned into creatures themselves.
Now that was the short run of the story and I purposely did that so we can focus on the movie as a whole. I'll break it down so you all have an understanding of what I honestly thought of the movie.
First of all, the acting was less than perfect; in fact let's go so far as to say that everyone really couldn't act that well at all. With that said, let's also understand that this was the first picture of everyone involved, including director Eric Stanze.
Secondly, let's shoot for the story, which really wasn't that bad; in fact it was pretty damn creative how Stanze came up with a story based around a really bad event surrounding the Cherokee culture. It could be almost believable that one of the tribesmen screwed up a few incantations and brought his tribe’s crops to stone and totally screwed them; I thought that was actually pretty cool and original.
Lastly, let's rock out with what I really loved with this movie, the gore. My friends, this movie had some excellent gore scenes, some decapitations, disembowelments, lots of flesh chewing, and even a puss spitting tongue spike. SAVAGE HARVEST had guts, and lots of it, which made up for the lack of great acting and a better budget. I've seen movies on greater budgets that haven't come close to a few of the gore scenes in this movie, and for that I give a lot of credit where it's due. Not since DARKNESS: THE VAMPIRE VERSION have I seen such badass blood-splatting FX.
In all, this movie is probably best watched by true horror fans for historical reasons. It was filmed in a time when indie horror films were starting to really lose what made them more in-demand with the underground horror fans. It came after the 80's glory days were gone and lost forever, when a new era of independent horror started to plague the 90's. I recommend you watch this at least once; it's not going to shock you or make you toss your cookies, but it's definitely going to show you a side of indie horror that's rarely mimicked.
Final Comments:
Personally I liked SAVAGE HARVEST. Like I said, even though the story isn't bad and the acting is, this movie has got some really badass FX scenes for its time, and I'm all for it. Give it a shot.
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