Harvesters (USA, 2001) 95 min color DIR-DOP: Joe Ripple. SCR: Don Dohler, Joe Ripple, Pam Mones. PROD: Don Dohler. MUSIC: David Claridge, Sean Quinn, Joe Ripple. CAST: Donna Sherman, George Stover, Patty Cipoletti, Micci L. Sampery, Steven King, Joe Ripple, Leanna Chamish. (Timewarp Films)
The first of Baltimore auteur Don Dohler’s films in partnership with Joe Ripple and their company Timewarp Films is probably the best, even if it revisits the framework of Dohler’s troubled production, Blood Massacre, which was released to video only in rough cut form by sneaky investors. Once again, thieves hold a deceptively squeaky clean family at bay, and find out there’s more to them than meets the eye, albeit with liberal changes to characters, and more subplot.
Donna Sherman, perhaps even more macho than in Dohler’s previous Alien Rampage, is Frankie, the lesbian leader of a nomadic pack of drug addicted robbers who elude a special task force investigation team (with Joe Ripple, and Patty Cipoletti, a recognizable face in many Canadian commercials). The excuse for Frankie’s sexual preference is likely to fill the “boobs” requisite of the movie, as in early on, she watches a table dancer at some gin joint with those generic ceiling tiles. Nonetheless a fight breaks out in the bar, which once again gets our detectives back on their trail.
While on the run, they carjack a young lady named Layla Peelman (Jaime Kalman), and force her to drive them to her nearby home. George Stover plays the father Harvey, and the fetching, wide-eyed but talent-free Leanna Chamish is the matriarchal Betty, with a psychotic devotion to her cooking. In this variation on the “hostage” formula, perhaps this family is more defensive. Even when our FBI agents arrive at the Peelman’s house for questioning, Harvey blankly manages to shoo them away. As soon as the Peelman’s other princess of a daughter Amy (Erin Palmisano) comes home with blood on her, we viewers know the tables will turn.
Since this is copying from Blood Massacre’s blueprint, we soon get the obligatory bathtub scene, where one of Frankie’s goons gets to watch over Lisa’s bathing to wash the blood off. This provides an excuse for a tacked-in sequence where we see the goon dream of Lisa in a bathtub full of blood in front of a black background. After he wakes from his dream, she gets out of the tub with a “come hither” look, and soon the third act emerges as both the cops and robbers find out the hard way that this nuclear family is actually in the organ sales business (hence, the title), and they’ve become unwitting donors.
Despite the horrific undertones, this is mainly an action-adventure plot, as Frankie exhibits some survivalist techniques while fighting in the forest against the Peelmans. Harvesters is engaging fun, both for its over-the-top satire of the typical suburban family and its exciting story. However the blood and fireball effects are obviously done with CGI instead of practicals, thus detracting from the reality the filmmakers had created.
Many fans of Dohler’s work have disdain for the Joe Ripple films, perhaps because of the requisite abundant nudity (which both men were uncomfortable with including anyway) to ensure distribution, or that they weren’t done in the same spirit as the earlier work. Since these works were shot on video, and the effects were made on a computer instead of with miniatures or the other “analog” ways that Dohler had written about in the past, these films feel rather plastic. While well shot and edited, they still appear as antiseptic as many other direct-to-video cousins that compete for shelf space. But each of the Timewarp films are worth seeing at least once, since they do have interesting ideas, and are fast-moving movies within their 75 to 90 minute running times.
Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #22, “Cheap Horror Movies …and Why We Love Them”.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.