Dark Fields (2009)
2/10
Story better than the bite
27 May 2013
Set across three generations of inhabitants of the small town of Perseverance, comes a story not done justice by the flimsy direction and wooden acting. This eerie and suspenseful tale about a village haunted and cursed by wickedness contaminating their rain, ends up ringing hollow despite some good cast choices. Rain the purifier becomes the touch of death. The whole event is initiated in the late 1900s, as the village, led by Clive Jonis (played by the ever-charismatic genre old-timer David Carradine) enters into a pact with a devilish shaman. This in turns has bloody repercussions many years in the future as human sacrifices are necessitated by the need for rain.

Inside the story lurks some great potential with a creepy top-hat taking centre stage, while Tiren Jhames as the ominous Mr Saul brings the beast delivering a superb character. However, most screen times is wasted on some truly appalling child acting, who one-by-one spiral the movie into oblivion, leaving just singular moments and short-lived spine-crawling elements. Surprisingly disjointed it also features superior technical qualities depending on specific sub-stories, with acting, lighting and overall feel superior during the turn of the century story thread.

The story also becomes undone by the basic premise, which suggests that longing for life would corrupt the soul to such an extent, that mothers and fathers would willing dispose of their own kin. The concept itself seems so far-flung, thus only underlining the low production qualities, probably forced by budget limitations.
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