The Rain (2009) Reviews

• Spirited Low-Budget Horror

  LeonLouisRicci2013-05-21

  There is a very good Horror/Supernatural Movie in here somewhere. It has excellent Cinematography, some eerie Make-Up effects, and a feel of the unreal. But in its ambitious attempt to tell a Story spanning three Generations of a cursed Community, something got submerged. It is unnecessarily muddled and confusing and with some attentive Editing and a different structure, this one could have been a real Sleeper. Presented here, it is laborious, much too long, and the pacing is just too slow. It is worth a watch for Fans of Horror and low budget experiments. There is some real Talent at work here behind the Camera, but its the Composition and flow that defeats this good try. This is some heavy going and is intriguing, but could be more homogenized.

• Weird film, not bad

  digdog-785-7175382011-04-17

  There is something i don't understand about this film - it appears as if a good film is interspersed with scenes from a bad film, and by that i mean not good and bad writing together; allow me to explain. The Rain is a film which contains three parallel stories, in three different times, all concerning the same plot element; the first one, in the early 1900s (with David Carradine lead) is nicer, better direction, better lighting, nice post-prod and altogether a decent production, while the second, seems to have been shot at a later date, when the funds ran out, and the production values are much worse. The female lead in the second story is also much worse than any of the supporting. But on with the review. The Rain (or Dark Fields, as i know it) is the story of a curse, brought about by the magic of an Indian shaman when he is asked to provide rainfall for a drought-stricken town... human sacrifice is a necessity of course, and thus the curse, and the three stories - the first drought and the pact with the shaman, the curse later in the years and the revelation of the need of sacrifices to a daughter by her cursed parents, and the continuation in the present day. The curse is personified by the shaman's top'hat, which is a nice touch, and The Rain doesn't lack a good many nice psychological touches. This film has many good points, the first of which is a very creepy story and some decent acting; there is also a modicum of special effects, but again, some good, some truly abysmal, but its best feature is the writing. Though it is unrelated, there is a lot in this film that screams "cthulhu mythos", and in my book that is a good thing. In the end, what let down this film is not the effort, or the talent, but the money - of which i must assume they didn't have enough of, as The Rain would have truly benefited a lot from better production, casting and photography; however, my opinion is still that a vote of four is way too low - sure, the end result isn't stellar, mostly from the project being too ambitious (at almost two hours long, the film still feels as if it should have been made longer - perhaps as a two part TV production), but as a nice Gothic-horror story, and with it being very watchable, i say .. Final vote 6/10 - too ambitious, could have been lots better, but horror lovers (and mythos fans) shouldn't miss it

• Dark Fields delivers

  Hedocrity2011-03-24

  It's said that horror fans aren't a very discriminating bunch. And given the volume of crap horror movies out there, I can't argue that. But I also take offense to it. I'm a life-long horror fan, and I regularly bypass the uncreative slashers and nauseatingly unoriginal remakes that populate the field these days. I like a quality, original horror film. And "Dark Fields" fits that bill. Inspired by Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery", the film's story interweaves three narratives, each taking place in the aptly named town of Perseverance, each in a different time period – the 1880's, the 1950's, and the present day. The residents of Perseverance are oppressed with a curse. Each year they suffer an affliction to their bodies and a drought to their land, the only cure for which is to sacrifice three of their children. Three things make this movie rock. First, director Doug Schulze's visual flair, accomplished through a knack for unique and effective composition, creepy art direction, and occasionally gruesome special effects – both of the practical and CGI variety. Schulze displays an inventiveness here that belies a great effort not usually seen in films at this budget level; in all instances above he regularly puts original ideas on the screen. I found his concept for the physical affliction of the curse to be especially satisfying, especially in its final form on female lead Sasha Higgins, and in the grisly teeth-pulling scene (which I watched from between my fingers). Cinematographer Lon Stratton's dark, moody photography – utilizing both Super 35 and the then-new Red One 4K digital camera -- effectively augments the layered visuals. Second, the cast. Icons David Carradine and Dee Wallace Stone deliver. Both have faces you could watch read a phone book, and Schulze uses their gravitas to anchor their segments. Richard Lynch, too, is a standout as a tortured father witnessing his daughter succumb to her initial affliction of the town's curse. And third, the story. I went into "Dark Fields" with trepidation, knowing it was an anthology piece. Anthologies always leave me dissatisfied – I'm not a short film fan and they always feel like a string of shorts to me. But "Dark Fields" employs a unique structure, in which the three stories unfold simultaneously, climaxing in the resolution of the curse in the present day. They interwoven narratives build towards this common end, along the way each telling a unique story with a common theme. It gets a little confusing sometimes -- and it demands your attention -- but it works. "Dark Fields" is low-budget indie horror, and like most entries in that populous sub-genre, the seams occasionally show. But the trade-off is its originality. Not Hollywood product, this. I'll call it a thinking person's horror film, in that it's not for the mentally lazy. There isn't a lot that's spelled out in simple terms, and little immediate satisfaction; things generally come to fruition at a deliberate pace. But you do get the feeling that you're in the hands of a storyteller who knows his craft and will deliver. Go into it knowing that and you'll be a (discriminating) fan.

• A complicated but not a very complex movie - it passes as "entertaining"!

  e-Liza12011-05-01

  The makers of this film had difficulties during its production. David Carradine's death from "accidental asphyxiation" in Thailand, during the making of this movie, and money difficulties, meant that this movie could have been better than it was. So when I discovered this, I feel a bit sorry for it! But I still found it absorbing viewing - much better than a lot of movies. This movie is very convoluted, and yet, for all of the flashbacks and flash-forwards, it wasn't very COMPLEX. I was reminded, somewhat, of "National Velvet" - if a weirder, homespun, hometown struggling rural family-values version than the early sixties B&W TV series, but still "National Velvet"! I couldn't be sure whether to give it a 4/10 or a 5/10 - and when I checked the IMDb ratings stats, what do you know!: I found it had a "weighted average" of 4.5! So there you are - I suppose that's how a lot of other people feel about it, too! What really irritated me, much, much, more than the constant flash-forwards, and flash-backs - the movie is set in the town of "Perseverence" in three different time periods and alternates between three time-periods throughout - was the failure of the protagonists to do something that I could clearly see was a LOGICAL thing to do - to kill "The Saw Man", the demon with the sharp teeth, or destroy "The Hat": At one point there was, for example, the perfect opportunity to run the Hat over with a car, and then an even BETTER opportunity to run down the demon AND to flatten The Hat - at the same time. But I suppose the girl at the wheel of the car took pity on the demon, and just couldn't find it in her heart to do it! i.e. "National Velvet Time"!!! There were so many missed opportunities - and isn't that what we REALLY hate in a horror movie, those dumb people who don't think of doing something like jumping up and down on a hat and FLATTENING the curs'ed thing, for example??? (I think, maybe so!?) ... At least to TRY to do it, and see what happens?!!! I thought the special effects at the end were very good - and I liked the ending! And the ending, at least, is logical! In consideration of a possible deeper meaning to the film, I did think the way in which The Hat was carried reverentially, at heart-height, as a symbol of community-authority, was a serious commentary upon the way in which social "authority" is seen as divorced from human beings, and a powerful metaphor for the way in which people will commit any manner of evil whatsoever when a so-called "AUTHORITY" of some kind to commit those acts of evil removes, in THEIR eyes, their own responsibility for those act of evil that THEY - without ANY ambiguity ARE committing! And in this film, these people all KNOW they are doing harm to others; and, as in this movie, they club together in Churches and behave, as though they are the victims, self-righteously in doing so; and, as in this movie they invoke God and will sacrifice anything, including their own children, "for the survival of this family" - for God, the family, and the community! After a little way into the movie, I just kept wondering, why don't they just put a gun to their heads? Wouldn't it be easier than having the perennial fear of dying in horror and torment and agony, and rather than, apparently, having to kill their children in horrifying ways? And aren't there more HUMANE ways to kill them?! These are all HOLES in the story, from what I could see, and these numerous unexplored, seemingly logical inconsistencies, irritated me greatly. But still, somewhat profoundly, this movie is about patriarchal society, people owning their children and abusing them, and it is about small communities that hide and cover-up their crimes, which they commit in the sight of their God. It's American Gothic - and this movie, if nothing else, wants to indict these people, to hold them responsible for all the evil they have done, and all the evil they do, and, in the end, to PUNISH them! And that is what happens to them in this movie - not in real life, but at least in this movie!

• Overcomplicated mess inspired by The Lottery

  krachtm2013-03-02

  The plot: A cursed town holds a lottery to sacrifice three children from every generation to ensure rain. I was kind of excited to see a movie starring some B movie legends (Richard Lynch, David Carradine, and Dee Wallace Stone), but none of them really has all that much screen time. In fact, the movie splits its time almost randomly between half a dozen characters, each of whom wander in and out of the main plot while telling their own story. A talented writer/director could have pulled this off, but it just ends up being annoying and confusing here. The story is a bizarre mix of Dark Romanticism tropes that never really settles down into a coherent story. There's a cursed bloodline, a small town with a hideous secret, Faustian bargains with malevolent spirits, some kind of demon guy who comes out of nowhere, exploited Native Americans, Machiavellian adults, and innocent children. Throw all these things together, with a few modern horror clichés (such as a deus ex machina in the form of a friendly dog), and you get... well... to be honest, I'm not sure what you get. The movie was so erratic, random, and disorganized that I was constantly wondering exactly what I was supposed to be taking from each scene. If the writer/director had just settled on telling one story without spreading the exposition through three vignettes that barely even interconnect, I think he could have had something that would be remembered fondly by B movie fans. Instead, he tries to pull off something like Pulp Fiction and fails miserably. There are some scenes that worked well, but, overall, the movie was clumsy and amateurish. As far as Shirley Jackson ripoffs go, this wasn't the worst that I've seen. It was able to channel much of her pessimism about human nature while preserving her faith in children. It also hit all the right notes that a story inspired by The Lottery should hit, though it hit them in a haphazard, lazy way, burying them under a mountain of subplots and extraneous characters. If you're into independent horror, then you're probably pretty forgiving of even the most egregious flaws. For you, this will probably seem like an enjoyable waste of time. If you're more into mainstream, big budget horror movies, I have to warn you away from this low budget mess.