Blood Harvest

 

Blood Harvest ended up being another one of those b-flicks where the marketing grabs you and doesn't let go. It plays on who the main draw is, where here it's Tiny Tim of all people-it cackles in your face because it knows that you're going to want to sit through this because he's portrayed as the maniacal killer, when in reality it's his brother Gary. Oooops-normally I don't give things up right here when I first start, but the way that things are structured here lends itself to being pretty obvious after the first act piddles itself away and you realize that this microcosm of the world that these people take up space in is only comprised of a small handful. There is a lot of nudity placed into the run time of Blood Harvest, and honestly I didn't think there was going to be any. Hell, with a title like Blood Harvest I was really hoping that it was going to be a gory romp full of eyes being gouged out and Tiny Tim in his clown make-up eating people for dinner, but that's not even close to what takes place in this film about a guy who is so obsessed with his past love that he will do anything to keep her forever-even kill her. I have to say that I really wasn't into Jill as the main character here at all and she just seemed to loose (not in a sexual way) to be the fulcrum in balancing everything that was going on and it bothered me that she was so easily chloroformed by Gary on about two or three different occasions during the film. She just seemed to be to easy of a target and didn't know how to fend anyone off. Maybe under a microscope all the characters here were basically like that except Gary and Sheriff Buckley. Even Tiny Tim himself just seemed weak and underdeveloped, but for Mervo in particular, I believe that was the point.

Jill left for college and came back home to visit her parents. They are nowhere to be found and she has no clue what happened to them. The beginning of Blood Harvest starts off with some guy hanging himself for what seems to be no apparent reason, but then it builds and builds on itself until you realize that someone is killing these four specific people to get to Jill, and I've unfortunately already spoiled who it is and why. There is a pile of weirdness on behalf of Mervo The Magnificent and Gary because they are cut from the same cloth and whoever their parents are or were must be a real treat because they have some serious fucking issues. At one point, Mervo is in a house or cabin, sitting at a table and singing songs about the Bible and looking at pictures of a gutted pig hanging from the ceiling of the barn that Gary is killing everyone in. I just don't get it. I don't think I'm supposed to. Or maybe I'm just not nutty enough. Whatever the case may be, Mervo and his brother are just downright off the wall and that's enough to propel this thing into cult status.

Tears of a clown. Especially Tiny Tim.

This guy's voice is booming without even talking into a mic. 

Normies for the slaughter.

Sweet Lord, Sarah is hot!

I'm confused, so is that a real dead guy hanging in the front door or is that a mannequin?

Marvelous Mervo! The murderous clown!

Paintball is such a great sport.

"How about some meaningless sex?"

Yeah, another day shot to hell.

The good Lord is going to guide Mervo into murdering more people. Or his brother.

Tiny Tim is fucking weird, but damn is he entertaining.

     That carpet is so fucking ugly. It doesn't even look like carpet-it looks like the floor is made out of pizza or spaghetti.

Oh man, Scott-baseball bat to the face!

Zits and zombies, Blood Harvest is a messed up film about obsession, stalking and lust. That is not even remotely close to what I thought it was going to be about, but here it is. And Mervo isn't the murderous clown I was hoping for either, but here it is. There is more nudity than the actual harvesting of blood and plasma, but here it is. Okay, I'll stop with the semantics, but really-even though this film isn't what it really lends it self to be, I enjoyed it fully even with all of it's intrinsic flaws and half-baked characters. Pretty much all of them are throw away except Jill, Gary and Mervo (which is about half of them) and in the end even though I still liked Blood Harvest for what it became after sitting through it, it is still kind of a waste. I would have liked a little more gore to balance things out and Jill should have been a stronger female lead, but hey-not every piece sells the circus. Not every pig yields the bacon and not every Bible saves your soul. Well, maybe they do. I don't know. Just book Mervo The Magnificent for your next birthday party. He'll be happy to do it. Because he just wants to see the world smile one last time.