Now that I am once again living in Appleton, Wisconsin, I have access to my father’s vast library of movies. He owns recordings of hundreds upon hundreds of films, almost all of which are well-done and highly rated. Naturally, with this impressive resource at my finger tips, I walked over to the public library and checked out The Dark Secret of Harvest Home.
The movie billed itself as “the place where your worst nightmares come true.” There were, however, too few aquatic life forms for it to legitimately make that claim.
Nightmare or no, the movie tells the chilling tale of a Manhattan man who, with his wife and daughter, moves to an idyllic town in the countryside only to slowly discover that the peaceful hamlet is run by a cult of blood-thirsty, earth-worshipping feminazis led by the ultimate ball-eating broad, Bette Davis herself.
If the fruits of my research prove true, this horrific 1978 piece of made-for-tv schlock was originally a four hour miniseries which was then cut down to two hours for release on video. I don’t know whether the uncut version would be better or worse. On the one hand it’s four hours; on the other, it’s four hours of an evil Bette Davis menacing an increasingly bland David Ackroyd....Now that I think of it, neither of those are much of a recommendation. However, if it were Bette Davis menacing Dan Ackroyd, it might have worked. I can’t imagine that the movie would suffer from a few rousing blues numbers, and if Bette Davis started dancing frenetically then all the better.
Dancing is a good outlet for pent up tensions, but, as most people know, sex is an even better one, and I think that the township in question could have saved itself a lot of trouble if the men had just banged their wives more. As careful scrutiny of the women’s cultic practices will reveal, the women craved sex. The men, however, seemed little willing to actually satisfy their wives, and, in the end, the only licentiousness that took place happened under the influence of magical elixirs.
But, as we all know, it’s almost impossible to get men interested in sex, so I think that the next best solution to the above mentioned problem would be for all the women to start smoking marijuana.
It bares mentioning here that I think it would be a good idea for them to smoke marijuana, the wacky weed associated with reggae music and known for it’s calming effects. I am not however recommend they smoke marihuana, a substance which apparently (if one is to believe the facts presented in the movie Reefer Madness) jacks a person up causing them to drive fast, dance wildly, play the piano frantically and, in some cases, descend into criminal insanity.
In retrospect, I wish I had watched Reefer Madness before viewing The Dark Secret of Harvest Home. Although I have never smoked a joint in my life (or at least never inhaled), by the end of watching Reefer Madness I was laughing as hysterically as if I were jacked up on “marihuana”, and I strongly suspect that The Dark Secret of Harvest Home would have been more entertaining while I was in that state.
Of course, it would have been most entertaining of all if the actors had been drugged up (on either marijuana or marihuana; I’m not picky). As it is, I think that only the writers were, which is no fun at all (and really quite common). Oh well, at least I can always turn to The Star Wars Holiday Special if I’m really desperate to see the results of the excessive imbibing of foreign substances. Not only were the writers high out of their minds, but so was Carrie Fisher. But, then again, I would need a handful of joints just to make it through the opening thirty minutes which feature dialogue completely in Wookie...with no subtitles.
I suppose I could always start watching good movies, but I’m afraid the withdrawal might be too much, and I’d still turn to marihuana...or cultic orgies...or Blues Brothers-style dancing, and, when it comes down to it, sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll really isn’t my thing.
Copyright 2005 Jessica Menn