BLOOD HARVEST is probably famous (or possibly infamous) for featuring Tiny Tim, best known for singing Tiptoe through the Tulips, in his first (and possibly only) serious film role, he plays 'Marvelous Mervo', a man who is permanently dressed in a clown costume and seemingly has brain damage. The film follows Jill, a young woman who returns home from college to see her parents who are nowhere to be seen. As her father was the bank supervisor who for closed many local farms, just about everyone in town hates her family, and it seems the only people who are pleased to see Jill are Gary, an ex boyfriend of hers and his brother, the aforementioned Marvelous Mervo. With her parents missing and townspeople close to Jill disappearing and murdered by being knocked out with chloroform, hung upside down and their throats cut, the killer could be any of the agrieved farmers.
This has so many weird and offkilter elements that I was frequently wrongfooted and surprised; there are some scenes which are genuinely unnerving and suspenseful, others which are strangely comedic, and some which are not quite gruesome, but definitely nasty. Anything which involves someone being hung from the rafter is in a barn and thrashing about with blood pouring from a slit in the throat is (intentionally) unpleasant. Throw in a surprising appearance by a young Peter Krause (perhaps best known for playing Nate in Six Feet Under) as Jill's boyfriend and Marvelous Mervo's occasional Greek chorus with his song about Gary and Jill, to the tune of 'Jack and Jill' then you have a very strange mix of ingredients which, when used inconsistently, don't give you much chance to settle.
This new 88 Films Blu-ray release looks and sounds remarkably good for a low-budget film of its age and I'm not sure if it's because I was expecting something truly awful, but I thought this had a strange sort of charm, and is definitely much better and more watchable than I expected. Although I could quibble with the 'Slasher Classics' designation, it's a curio which benefits from it weirdness and something I'll revisit in a few days, if not before. I think I'll watch the extra features, mostly devoted to Tiny Tim, and read the short essay which came in the box this afternoon.
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