Deadly Harvest

1977
4.4| 1h27m| en| More Info
Released: 21 August 1977 Released
Producted By: Burg-Ambassador
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Farmer struggles to keep food on the table, and regain his son who has joined a gang of marauding city-folk during the world's worst famine.

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Reviews

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.
FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
ShangLuda Admirable film.
Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
vandino1 'Deadly Harvest' sounds like the title of some 'Children of The Corn' type of film, with cannibals being mowed down by wheat threshers, or something else suitably gruesome. But no, it's actually a Canadian version of one of those Hollywood 70's "be forewarned" sci-fi epics (ala 'Soylent Green' or "No Blade of Grass'); this one telling the tale of a massive, global food shortage at the end of the seventies resulting in a hunger panic that reaches the good folk who live out on the farms. The film's lead farmer is played by Clint Walker who occupies the space of one acre all by himself. And his acting, as always, is about as tinny and wooden-handled as a plow, too. He plods through this film like an inoffensive sasquatch, with a landslide of oily hair that makes it appear he bathes in a bog. Kim Cattrall, a Canadian actress all of 20 years old here, gets little to do as Walker's daughter. Her face bulges with baby fat so she's almost unrecognizable as the 'Sex and The City' woman of today. Nehemiah Persoff is collecting a paycheck on this one and probably dispensed with the craft services since he provided his own ham in every scene he's in. Otherwise, it's nondescript actors doing nondescript work with nondescript dialogue. Really, this little movie held some promise with its intriguing concept, but let itself down by executing said concept so poorly. The perfect example of this is the climactic battle between Persoff's gang and Walker's that is nothing more than another wild west shootout. Walker's comment at the end that things are about to get much worse does add a chilling coda, although it is the next stage of the disaster that Walker alludes to, with city folk ravaging the countryside, that we really want to see. Oh, and the music score by somebody named John Mills-Cockell is a cheap synthesizer drag. This film could have been a dark comic masterpiece if, instead of a food shortage caused by failing crops and overpopulation, it was about obese Americans so hungry that they've eaten all the food the world can produce and, even with extinction at hand, can't stop eating. Ah well, food for thought.........
W.S.Sharpe (darkwebonline) It's the end of the world as we know it. Cause? A massive lack of food resources. Yes, freak weather conditions have caused starvation on a massive scale, and it's not too long before neighbour turns on neighbour in the quest for a good meal.Clint Walker plays the heroic farmer who, in an effort to keep his family fed, fights off all sorts of unsavoury characters. People will do literally anything to get their hands on a bit of grub...including murder.Deadly Harvest is an interesting attempt to show how quickly society can collapse when faced with crisis, and how fast man will resort to primate savageness in order to save his own skin.The film concentrates on two families, at first the closest of friends, then embedded in a bitter feud of survival of the fittest. But it's not just his pals that Clint has to contend with. It's a world where the richest man is he who has a well stocked larder (or in Clint's case, a farm full of fodder). However, with no law and only disorder, the richest man is also target no. 1.Released only limitedly in 1976, Deadly Harvest is a member of the popular end-of-the-World subgenre. It's all bleak here, the ending only promise that things will get worse. Is this a terrifying vision of things to come? Convincing performances, and good direction by Timothy Bond certainly give it a feel of realism that at times is unsettling.Ultimately however, this is fairly familiar territory, the family unit facing the apocalypse has all been done before ('Panic in the Year Zero!' With Ray Milland for example), and it all seems a little tame. What surprised me more than anything was that there wasn't even one reference to cannibalism! Is this really a HSF (horror,sci-fi and fantasy) Film?In fairness, considering that the film was produced on a very low budget, and is virtually unheard of, this is a bad effort at all. If nothing else, it serves as a stark warning to farmers; if you think things are bad now, it's only going to get far far worse!"Interesting" Facts: Clint Walker starred in several genre made-for-TV movies, including, 'Scream of the Wolf', 'Snowbeast' and 'Killdozer'. This was Timothy Bond's directorial debut. He went on to make the 1992 version of 'The Lost World' and several TV episodes including additions of 'Friday the 13th - The Series', 'Star Trek - The Next Generation' and 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'.
KDWms Just watched Deadly Harvest, then noticed a distinct lack - and recent vintage - of IMDb comments about it. But I ain't even gonna TRY to sway ya: You're gonna hafta make up your OWN mind about this one. You probably won't regard your time and/or money to have been wasted if you view this. But, neither do I believe that it's one of the greatest movies ever made, although a considerable percentage of IMDb voters apparently feel that way. It's got an uncomplicated premise: because of global COOLING, the food supply has become inadequate - nothing new in some parts of the world; but, in THIS film, in North America, as well. That's as much SCIENCE fiction as there is, however. The rest of the picture focuses on character behavior resultant from this circumstance. Therefore, the heavy reliance on acting, and not much else. I'll leave it up to you to decide who, if any of, and how, the thespians might imperfectly execute their craft. My impression is that it's done well enough to take seriously, but just average.
angilbas "Deadly Harvest" was made at a time when the Earth's climate was thought to be cooling due to a sun-blocking shroud of pollution. The film takes this premise to a setting in which winter begins in August! The world's food supply is almost gone and the social order is breaking down.Unfortunately, this film mostly comes across as just another cheap, violent 'tax shelter' ripoff. Walker is wooden (and his wood is weaker than usual) as the heroic farmer, while Persoff is inappropriately hammy as the arch-villain. Geraint Wyn-Davies of later "Forever Knight" fame had yet to show talent here.The film does take on a haunting quality near the end as it tours a frozen, near-deserted Toronto and witnesses a family's last meal. -Tony