User reviews

The girl Maryann (Natasha Calis) has just moved to the house of her Grandfather (Peter Fonda) and Grandmother (Leslie Lyles) in the countryside after losing her parents. She is lonely and misses her former friends and decides to wander around the area. She finds the secluded boy Andy (Charlie Tahan), who lives alone with his mother, the surgeon Dr. Katherine Young (Samantha Morton), and his father, the nurse Richard Young (Michael Shannon), in an isolated house. They immediately befriend each other and she enters in his room through the window to play video game with him since Andy depends on a wheelchair to locomote. On the next day, Maryann visits her new friend again and Richard let her in to play with Andy. On the next day, Katherine does not allow Maryann to visit her son and she goes to the house of her grandparents to forbid Maryann to visit her son. However Maryann insists on visiting Andy when his parents are absent; out of the blue, they return and Maryann is trapped inside the house. She goes to the basement expecting to find a way out and stumbles with a dark secret. What has Maryann discovered about Andy's creepy parents?

"The Harvest" is a great low-budget thriller with top-notch performances, highlighting Samantha Morton. The immediate impression is that there is a flaw when Maryann finds the truth and does not call the police. However, if she is not able to convince her grandparents, imagine the police department of a small town. The plot becomes predictable in a certain moment after the first plot point, but keeps the tension until the very end. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Ameaça" ("The Menace")

I am always more compelled when a story unfolds in an implicit fashion, as when John McNaughton's first feature film since 2001, The Harvest, opens on an incident that is not fully elucidated until several subsequent scenes contrast it with their own stakes and dimensions. We are kept in an ongoing state of anticipation by a patiently, implicitly unfolding story. Most movies feel more of a need to hit an overt, straightforward formula of beats, but what seasoned, patient filmmakers like John McNaughton are willing to hold out for is a contained, clear-cut storytelling style that slow-burns through on the way to pure and constant surprises.

Certain aspects of McNaughton's technique deliberately old-fashioned, and however that befits your tastes, it is that unhurried confidence that allows acutely poignant relationships to pop. There is something refreshingly and uncomfortably profound about the way the fearfully unpredictable Samantha Morton, as the mother of wheelchair-bound Andy, undermines his father, played with tangible vulnerability by gifted Steppenwolf alum Michael Shannon, her fears pushing her to antagonize those nearest and dearest, lashing out with keen cruelty to deflect her vulnerability, and tragically poisoning the already precarious atmosphere around her.

The Harvest, it should be made abundantly clear, is an acutely Midwestern film. You can feel it in its sentiment, in its traditional form, and in its piercing portrayal of awkward lulls and that apple pie sense of manners and politeness. Its center aim is on families and upbringing, and more specifically on the crippling feeling of being sheltered and living in a bubble. And as it unfolds into more psychotic territory, the more adult terror of being alone rears its ugly, ruining head.

Every viewer who grew up in Middle America had friends whose parents they despised. And we all remember the seemingly mortal fear of getting in trouble. The discomfort and suffering in this movie are palpable, owing to the powerfully subtle performances, the delicate direction and the knowing script, but also owing to its powerful sense of place. And when things take a harrowing turn, we're so engrossed that the tension never stops. And even at its most "sensational," it always keeps its feet on the ground dramatically.

Genuinely creepy thriller in which most of the actors excel in their respective roles, directed with sincerity and expertly. It threatens to go off the deep end a few times but thankfully never does.

It's just a shame the plot was so obvious.

Adventurous girl befriends a dying boy and uncovers a dark secret.

This is carefully put together and well acted by the girl and boy. The obsessive mother looked like she was heading for Kathy Bates intensity, but I think the punches were pulled in the end.

Problem I had with this was it starts as a conventional family drama and only ups the stakes halfway through, and even then it never develops a sense of menace. It's as if they thought the plot reveal alone would elevate the story beyond the Nancy Drew level.

Also the pace is pedestrian. The director gets the technicals spot on, but I guess the screenplay didn't give enough to allow the tension to mount.

This is a brillant film with aa good story. About family and A mother love of her child. How sometimes there more doing unthink and unforgiving thing. The writing is on point and with a brillaint cast. Charlie Tahan in this were good. Samantha Morton and Michael Shannon are brilliant in this film!!

Settling in to bed for a movie I did my random pick and mix and was presented with The Harvest which was mistakenly advertised as a horror, I can assure you that it isn't.

Starring modern day Zod himself Michael Shannon it is a well constructed fascinating little mystery that tells the story of an ill child with his overbearing mother.

It's one of those films that I was drawn into but didn't know quite why, however was eager to find out just quite where it was going.

The pivotal reveal turns the tide of the movie, and I mean that in a good way. The story takes shape, the cast do a stellar job and this under the radar movie I'd never heard of actually succeeded in blowing me away.

I can't say much about The Harvest without ruining it, I will merely say this is a masterworks in filmmaking and though not flawless is still a highly impressive little film.

The Good:

Very well written

Performances are flawless

Perfectly paced

The Bad:

A couple of unanswered questions linger

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Michael Shannon has one facial expression, I'm starting to think it's a mask

A sad and realistic portrayal of munchausen by proxy, which I was horrified to learn through research is only a crime in one U. S. state (Arkansas). It's horrifying the lack of basic human rights that children have, and it makes this film difficult and frustrating to watch. But it is still an engrossing and well-made thriller. No explosions, no gratuitous sex, etc. More films should follow this example.

Watched this on prime and have to say thoroughly enjoyed it. A very dark uncomfortable but un expectingly kept you so engrossed. Samantha Morton was incredible & scary as **

I do love a good Michael Shannon film, if he wasn't in it, it wouldn't have caught my eye and I wouldn't have watched it. The mum also plays a crazy mum in the recent seasons of the walking dead and she plays it perfectly in this and that. I like the massive twist, if you've seen it you know what I'm talking about. The film isn't bad, it's nothing special but it's definitely not an L.

The Majority of us don't even this movie is exist. Because they never promoted it and it never theatrically released. But I came across and accidentally found it, then I decided to give it a try like my usual support for the unnoticed flicks. In fact, the movie surprised me, the story was so much better than I thought, I mean awesome. But the movie had its own defects which lets it down. From the director of 'Wild Things', another decent suspense-thriller after almost 15 years.

Facially I recognised some of the actors, but did not know their names, except Michael Shannon. This story is set in a rural town, and most of the scenes were shot in an isolated house and its surroundings. A young girl Maryann, who moved to live with her grandparents after her parents' death, befriends a lonely, very sick boy Andy who has always been in the bed all his life. After a while it becomes a secret relationship once the boy's mother forbids seeing each other due to the severeness of the ill. But only until the secret comes out which leads the boy in jeopardy. So what follows is the double twist, one after another and a fitting conclusion.

"What's the difference between god and a doctor? God doesn't think he's a doctor."

Felt like I got a very good thriller here, but I extremely disappointed with the performances. To me the actings were the worst part in the entire film, along with a few scenes that I didn't like. Like I said, no doubt about the storyline, one of the best in the recent times, but the screenplay was utterly stupid in a few parts. Those should have been improvised for a better outcome. Especially I can't take it the way the girl for the first time meets the boy. The situation, the development, all were so silly, but somehow they had to come together where the rest of the story builds.

I know I'm kind of criticising it and I'm not intensely doing that. If it was a television movie, hundreds of excuses can be given, but it was not. Initially I expected it to be a creepy flick with haunting stuffs, but soon after I realised it was another kind of horror which I call them a terror-horror (uninvolvement of ghost, spirit, zombie, et cetera, but the human who creates a terrifying atmosphere). The opening was very unusual, but comes to the point very quickly. From introducing the characters to developing the story, it took time as it is not a short movie.

I never got bored, it kept me awake till the end credit. Storywise, I enjoyed it. If it was corrected all the flawed areas as I mentioned, would have been eased to accept the film by everyone. I feel it is worth suggesting, but not to everybody. If you are looking for a mystery film, then you could try it. Despite whatever I said negatively about it, I still can't able to hate it completely. Obviously it is underrated, it deserves to be praised from the one angle. In another I can't pretend like I don't see the flaws. If somebody is going to remake it in 20-30 years later from now, I'll be old and I expect them to emend the mistakes this one made.

7/10

Giving this movie a seven may be pushing it, but the movie is actually pretty good. I saw the trailer and was interested, despite the poor reviews, and was pleasantly surprised. The acting was good, and the boy in this movies acting was excellent. This movie follows a young girl who moved to a small town with her grandparents and meets a handicap boy. His parents mysteriously do not want him around but he still meets him. She discovers secrets, but no one believes her. The movie wasn't all good, there were plenty of flaws. The genre is a horror/thriller. Yet the movie drags at times, and is in no way scary. But if you have a week night alone, and have nothing to do, this is just the movie for you.

My girl actually thinks it was a decent movie. Something just seems to be missing. The acting is decent and real life like lets say... almost boring depiction of how it would look in real life really when come to think of it.

It has some twists, shocking you might say, but predictable in my opinion. I like the type of movie where the suspense gets built up just before the end... not that kind of movie. More times there is a "come on..." frustrated feeling instead of the thrilling "I wonder what is going to happen next".

It has its moments but not the kind of movie you go and recommend your friends to... It just isn't.

Can't Come Out To Play (AKA The Harvest): We've been here before, a girl moves to a small town, finds a bed-ridden ill boy and befriends him. Even the boys mother disapproving of the friendship is familiar. But this parent is a hybrid of Nurse Ratched and Carrie's mother. She's a doctor who treats the boy, even her husband, a nurse thinks she is over-medicating. But something far darker than Munchausen syndrome by proxy is going on. To say anymore would be a major spoiler. Just be assured that this is a good psychological horror thriller. Directed by John McNaughten from a screenplay by Stephen Lancellotti. On Horror Channel. 7/10.

I expected to watch a horror movie when I watched this movie, shame that it was not

The first 50 minutes is like a cheesy made for TV family drama with the scariest bit being that the little boy has his toys taken away from his mother when she got angry with him

That's not even me trying to be funny, that is really the scariest part in the first half of the movie, and it's not maliciously filmed or anything it's just a angry mother being upset with her son because he didn't do what she thought he should have

After that, it does get a little like 'everything is not what it seems' mysterious but it's still not a horror, the last 30 minutes does have some thriller elements to it, enough I guess to warrant the studio to call it a 'dramathriller' but still... NOT a horror

Expected a lot more especially considering it stars Michael Shannon who I really think kicks ass usually, here he's more of a background player, I also like Samantha Morton but she also fails to truly engage me...

BUT it's probably not their fault in actuality, and the fault lies more within the director I would imagine

The movie was made in 2013 but got shelved until a couple months back in 2015, and it is no surprise why when watching it

Perhaps if I went into it knowing that it wasn't gonna be a horror I would have been able to enjoy it a little more (not enough for it to be a good movie but maybe enough not to be angry about being conned by the movie company's marketing tactics at the very least)

I have watched this one a couple of times to make sure I felt about it the way I did the first time I watched it, and I do. It's a slow-building drama with a lot of quiet dialog, but that makes Samantha Morton's outbursts that much more jarring and intense. Michael Shannon is able to convey a lot of emotion with very little action, and the child actors in the film do a good job holding their own. I won't give away any plot, as to talk about any of it would lead me down the spoiler path, but if you like a good thriller with a disturbing concept, this is worth a watch (or three).

It's not a "lights off" type of movie, and I wouldn't classify it as horror, but it's a tense thriller in the vein of Fatal Attraction or The Gift. And, it's worth mentioning Samantha Morton again - she plays her role with utter abandon. You believe that she is her character and she's utterly captivating. While she does have shouting and drooling to get her point across, her subtle changes in facial expression and the scariness of her smile is awesome too.

Right from the first act there's something creepy about the antagonistic mother. She might just appear overprotective, but then it escalates into "Can I see the manager?" obnoxious mom stereotype to mentally overdosed on Bane's serum and finally channeling Kathy Bates. The movie looks timid in the beginning, although it soon spirals deeper into darker territory.

I did not know anything about this movie and it looked rather low budget, but at least it had Michael Shannon. This was a pleasant surprise of psychological thriller that managed to tug at my empathy nerve. Story focuses on a weak boy and his new neighbor. Surprisingly, his mother forbids this friendship as she might just harbor terrible secrets.

The movie works on presenting the confining situation of the boy and his reliance on the strange parents is bizarrely intense. Credit on both Natasha Calis and Charlie Tahan as the children, they present the youthful friendship very well. The platonic bond and innocent nature are entirely convincing. It's heavily sympathy inducing because almost every scene is relatable. I found myself inevitably rooting for them.

Michael Shannon as the father has enigmatic charisma, even though his role isn't a strong one. He displays enough tenderness and depravity just to make audience wonders of his intention. Meanwhile, Samantha Morton is on a roll by being crazy bad. She's aggressive, demeaning and even a bit detached from reality. It's like looking at furious over-privileged customer yelling at cashier, but in next level of gruesomeness.

Some of the scenes do tend to slow the pace down slightly and the shouting might be too often or crude. However, the fact that it doesn't have big budget makes it even more impressive by utilizing the characters and actors who perform them admirably. The Harvest's unassuming visual and presentation produce an emotionally effective thriller.

I was expecting more. There are some good actors. The movie is more like an afterschool special of horror movies, seriously. Do not expect to be scared. Some good anxiety moments, but the plot was underwhelming. Not really a B-movie, not sure how to classify this. Like I said before good acting, but the plot is a big nope for me. Left a lots of things unanswered in the plot and at the end.