Fertile Ground Review
I am proud to say that I actually managed to watch the whole movie as I generally can't deal with horror movies like this. I will admit, though, that I had to watch it in chunks so I took breaks when it got too intense. Now, on to the review. :)
I honestly felt like both main characters did a great job. The female actress managed to really show her increasing anxiety over seeing things and over concern about her husband's personality changes. Gale did a great job to show that he seemed to be changing but to his credit and to the credit of the writing, these changes seemed to be generally subtle, except for the shift from being a vegetarian to killing and eating an animal. That seemed too obvious. The basic premise of the movie was okay, too, especially since there was a current of mental illness running through it. Unfortunately, that's really where the positives end. The most annoying element was the music. I realize that scary movies are supposed to have a soundtrack to enhance the fear. It did that, but the mixing was terrible. It was so loud at times that I constantly had to play with the volume as the music was SO loud but the dialogue was too quiet. At times, the music made it so I couldn't hear the dialogue at all. Way annoying. The other annoying element was that between each part there was a black screen and a few words to indicate the shift to the next segment. How dumb do they think the viewers are? We couldn't figure it out really? Some of the subtle elements weren't really subtle like the tree that is planted that dies. So obvious.
That said, Gale looked fabulous even if they couldn't dress him at all. I'm glad that I have seen it and can add it to my Gale collection but it won't be one that I will watch much of.
I honestly felt like both main characters did a great job. The female actress managed to really show her increasing anxiety over seeing things and over concern about her husband's personality changes. Gale did a great job to show that he seemed to be changing but to his credit and to the credit of the writing, these changes seemed to be generally subtle, except for the shift from being a vegetarian to killing and eating an animal. That seemed too obvious. The basic premise of the movie was okay, too, especially since there was a current of mental illness running through it. Unfortunately, that's really where the positives end. The most annoying element was the music. I realize that scary movies are supposed to have a soundtrack to enhance the fear. It did that, but the mixing was terrible. It was so loud at times that I constantly had to play with the volume as the music was SO loud but the dialogue was too quiet. At times, the music made it so I couldn't hear the dialogue at all. Way annoying. The other annoying element was that between each part there was a black screen and a few words to indicate the shift to the next segment. How dumb do they think the viewers are? We couldn't figure it out really? Some of the subtle elements weren't really subtle like the tree that is planted that dies. So obvious.
That said, Gale looked fabulous even if they couldn't dress him at all. I'm glad that I have seen it and can add it to my Gale collection but it won't be one that I will watch much of.