Fertile Ground (2011)
Directed by: Adam Gierasch
Written by: Adam Gierasch
Starring: Gale Harold, helcie Ross, Leisha Hailey
TITLE
Fertile Ground
Certificate (UK) – 15
Runtime – 93mins
Out Now To Rent and Buy On DVD/Blu-Ray
There are films that you know are not really awful and should be enjoying the experience but somehow you can just not connect with what is gong on! Fertile Ground has all the foundations of a wonderful horror, probably the best yet from this new range of After Dark horrors that are swamping the market every single week. Following on from the likes of Husk and Prowl, this is a more classier affair that comes straight out of the fold with a high class pedigree in the shape of director Adam Gierasch. For those who do not know this man he wrote the not so good re-make Tool Box Murders but before you turn away he also wrote Mother Of Tears a film directed by a certain Dario Argento, which that alone at least makes Fertile Ground a curios watch!
We start with a naked pose! Emily (Hailey) looking at herself in the mirror while holding her stomach that shows the bump of her baby to be. Proud and glowing, it is obvious from the start that this woman is longing for this baby, its arrival to bring the joy she so deeply wants. Of course this is a cue for something bad to happen and this occurs during a dinner party when Emily feels unwell and goes to the bathroom only for her husband Nate (Harold) to follow her up and to discover his wife sitting in a pool of blood which shatters their perfect life.
To try and get over this tragedy the couple sell up and move to the countryside into an old house that once belonged to ancestors of Nate. The plan is for Emily to recover and and start dress making again and Nate can continue with his painting that is beginning to sell a lot of money! Their love shines through the early stages and they have this determination that this awful experience will not beat them down, that their bond is strong that nothing can break them apart. What they did not expect though is the house they move into has an agenda, a dark secret that is so evil that nothing will stop in its path, and for poor Emily what was her worst nightmare is nothing that is about to arise from the depth of the ground!
I watched Fertile Ground over two days ago and I left it to now to write this review for the simple reason is that its one of the most confusing feelings I have had in horror! It be interesting to see what Matt Wavish, my fellow Critic at HCF writes in his review because I won’t be too surprised if he lavishes praise on the film! There is so much to like that I find it hard to criticise even though it left me cold! The film plays more like an emotional drama than a downright horror and the slow pace reminded me a bit like last years House Of The Devil, a film I totally adore! Gierasch shows some real quality and restrain with the shocks that may frustrate the new gore-porn crowd! We get a good half hour when nothing happens and then like a bullet the we have a shocking scene that makes you sit up in delight before settling back into the slow mode. I have no problem with this, some of the best horrors of all time share this trait, The Shining takes its time before Jack picks up the axe while if you watch Halloween the killings do not really start until the night falls! So for me to criticise this film for its slow approach will make me a hypocrite so its not that I had a problem with! Even the two leads are very likeable, even though they do ignore the obvious at times that will make you cry out in frustration. Emily catches a glimpse of ghostly figures moving through the corridors of the house, an handprints appears in a window but no one is there and does not disappear even after cleaned. The only scene that is missing is the blood coming from the old taps but we do get a toilet scene which dangerously sails close to the wind!
Looking back, maybe the plot was just too familiar to my horror taste! Here we have a whole meal of classic haunted house themes that we have seen all before with an added mix of Rosemary’s Baby. Fertile Ground does not really offer nothing new to this recipe and the older generation of horror fans will second guess the twists and turns way before it hits the screen! The main problem is The Shining looms large over the entire film and for that you can not help but think its all rather silly at times! The most annoying factor is the captions that appear on screen to tell us what is going on! After the miscarriage we get a black screen with white writing that states “Moving In“, in which we see these two err! move in! Five minutes later we see another caption state “Moving On!” which we now see the couple move on with their lives! Just when it you thought it can not get any more stupid we see a caption “Strange Happenings” in which things that go bump in the night appear! This policy may seem stylish and some fans may like the look but I did not really need the entire plot spelt out at me at every opportunity!
Again you can see that I am criticising the film but there is no doubt in my mind that fans of old 70’s horror will really enjoy Fertile Ground simply because of its old fashioned style horror that not once goes towards the gore path! It also has a vicious nasty streak running through which stuns at times because it feels so out of place with its drama style story telling!
But its the lack of originality through out for this horror fan that made it seem so shallow, even bordering on a running theme once witnessed in 80’s comedy High Spirits, and when you come to the climatic finish which again riffs on the Kubick classic there is a sense of better things to come from Gierasch, in which Fertile Ground is just the conception and one day the birth of this talented director is just around the corner!
Rating: 
[pt-filmtitle]Fertile Ground[/pt-filmtitle]
