Blood Harvest

Prior to watching Director Bill Rebane's opus, BLOOD HARVEST, it helps to know a little about it's star, Tiny Tim. He might not be the main star, but he's definitely the one you'll remember, whether you want to or not.

If you are old enough to remember him during his "heyday", plucking at his ukelele and warbling his way through the 1970s talk show circuit, you already know what to expect. However, if you are too young to know who he is / was, then it is recommended that you do a bit of research on this extremely odd, some might say, annoying character.

In any case, the fact that Tiny Tim owned his own clown suit, and was ready to go after meeting Mr. Rebane for the first time, tells us all we really need to know.

BLOOD HARVEST is among Mr. Rebane's highest achievements in the annals of schlock filmmaking. It has every ingredient necessary to make it a classic.

The only characters in the film that need to be mentioned are the aforementioned Mr. Tim, and the lovely Itonia Salchek, who plays the lovely Jill (she shows a lot of her loveliness here!). Sadly, Ms. Salchek mysteriously went missing after making this, her one and only movie. People have been trying to find her for years.

The plot of BLOOD HARVEST is about a series of murders around the time that Jill's father becomes responsible for dispossessing a lot of local farmers. Jill's friends soon start disappearing, while Mervo the Clown (TT) lurks around looking and acting completely nuts.

Not a bad way to spend a late-late night of mindless movie viewing...

I saw this movie on the Brentwood DVD, included in the Psychotic Tendencies 4-pack. It would seem to be the same cut version described by another user on the single disc DVD. Nevertheless, there is a fair amount of blood and nudity, including full-frontal nudity albeit in a different scene than the shower one.

I thought this movie was pretty effectively creepy. The beginning is disorienting. A clown sings in a high pitched vibrato "Gary and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Gary fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after" which he repeats. There's a shot of a pulley raising something, which proves to be a dead man hanging upside-down. Then there's a shot through a rainy window of police arriving and taking a body, and we see a young man looking through the window. Then there's an auction of a farm, and we see the clown without his makeup on looking upset, and there's a quick flash of the hanging man. Then there's a young woman walking down a road, while in voice-over she's having a phone conversation with her mother about arriving home.

The young woman is the daughter of an unpopular banker, unpopular because his bank is seizing farms. When she arrives home, her parents aren't there and her house has been vandalized. The clown is there, and clearly he's not all there. It turns out that he is Mervin "Merv" AKA Marvelous Mervo the clown, and he's the brother of Gary who is her ex-high school boyfriend. She's now engaged to someone she met in college.

Someone is killing people, and hanging them in her creepy barn, which she never goes into. Merv keeps showing up and acting weird. She realizes more people are disappearing. There are some scenes that make for high contrasts, as when she is hugging a stuffed animal, while elsewhere someone is being killed. Or, a scene of her unknowingly being chloroformed in her sleep, posed for a bondage Polaroid, and waking none the wiser being followed by a genuine sensitive lovemaking scene. There are a number of pretty sadistic scenes.

Tiny Tim plays Mervo and he sings to himself or to others a few times throughout the movie. Over the end credits, he sings an entire song "Marvelous Mervo." I rather enjoyed it! The DVD in the set lacks the extras the single disc is supposed to have. I'm curious how Tiny Tim got involved with the movie, which evidently those extras do touch upon. It would be nice if the uncut version were rereleased, or for those scenes to be included as an extra. It does happen sometimes that the director's cut is shorter than the original theatrical or straight to video version.

Extremely odd flick about a young woman (Itonia Salochek) who returns from college to discover that her parents are missing. Her neighbors are none other than preppy Dean West and his brother played by that lovable minstrel Tiny Tim, who may or may not know what has happened. Meanwhile, a masked killer slaughters whoever comes near the woman and just who it is becomes more and more obvious to the viewer past the first thirty minutes. Despite being notorious for Tiny Tim's one and only starring feature, this film is comprised mostly of hopeless time filler. Tiny Tim is fairly decent, however, as the creepy clown-faced weirdo who skulks around the farm. In fact it's his antics, Salochek's abundant nude scenes, and relatively realistic special effects which save this less than thrilling time waster. The only really effective scene is the opening sequence; featuring Tiny Tim squawking a tune in the dark. That's guaranteed to make your skin crawl in any film.

The only reason this movie is worth watching is because of the lovely Itonia Salchek. To bad we never saw this hottie again in anything else.

I had planned on buying the DVD for this very reason only to find from several reviews the movie has been cut worse than any of the victums in the movie.

Basically there are only two reasons to see "Blood Harvest" First, the falsetto wonder that was "Tiny Tim", playing "Marvelous Mervo", a drooling, slack jawed, giggling clown. Second, Itonia Salachek playing a naked girl throughout the film. Forget plot and acting skills, live with the fact that this is not the viscera-stained, sex, sleaze, and horror epic it is claimed to be. What "Blood Harvest" is, is a curiosity, much like a crowd would be drawn to a carnival sideshow, you sort of have to keep watching for the next "Mervo" appearance, or excuse for Itonia to lose her clothes. Certainly watchable, but just barely. - MERK