Adventures in Fake Journalism: Path of Evil

Like Harvest of Fear, its direct predecessor, Path of Evil features some fairly bizarre examples of fake newspaper headlines. Most of them use the bizarre Latin filler text that appears in HoF's stories, along with a variety of little errors-

'An 5-year old'? Other than minor nitpicky things, though, the papers are generally competent enough at filling in backstory during their flashes onscreen - although it's not always vital information. A new viewer needs to know, for example, that Jake was stabbed-

Carpenter was jailed for the Harvest killings-

And that Billy is credited as the hero who helped save the day-

Before Jake was arrested for beating him up!

Those are all perfectly helpful articles, which makes me wonder why all the other ones that just restated the opening sequence-

Were featured. We know full well that his parents were killed, filmmakers. You showed it happening.

Two of this movie's fake articles are worth singling out for a little more attention, however - one because the text of it is so bad that it has to have been a Simpsons-style joke meant for anyone willing to freeze-frame it-

Amazing, huh? Then, right at the end, there's an article which, unlike everything else in the montage of fake news, actually features a fake story, as opposed to filler text.

So here's the story, since it's not really legible in that size-

Retired Sheriff William Newton proves he still has the law in his blood.

Devil's Lake M.E. Carpenter arraigned on 24 counts of murder.

(left column)

If you asked former Devil's Lake Sheriff William Newton what he though his plans were for this spring, it certainly wasn't going to be chasing former colleague medical examiner James Carpenter through the streets of Devil's Lake and then eventually firing the shot that ended 24 unsolved murders in a span of over 20 (cut off)

That's a pretty heroic run-on sentence, huh? Notice the other error, beyond general lack of attention to how a newspaper should read? That's right - the previous movie was set during a 'Harvest Festival', while all the leaves were turning. So all that chasing Newton was doing probably wasn't happening during the spring...

Okay, so now onto the-

(right column)

Devil's Lake Medical Examiner James Peter Carpenter was shot by Newton in the chest and miraculously survived and is now in critical but stable condition at (illegible) County Medical Center in (illegible)

“Bring in the next 100 people shot in the chest with that size slug tearing through them and they'd all be dead,”. Said E.R. attending Dr. Michael D. Jones. “It's amazing. I guess the man up stairs had a (illegible)”.

I find this article more fascinating than most, largely because it demonstrates something key about the development of the film. Even though large departures were made from the plot of the previous movie, the filmmakers went out of their way to ensure that the events of this film jibed with the ending of Harvest of Fear.

So if, in their minds, it had to be made absolutely clear that this film was a follow-up to HoF, then aren't I forced to once again ask what happened to the bloody knife and the missing siblings?

Damn you, Path of Evil, pulling me right back in again!

Adventures in Fake Journalism: Harvest of Fear

After all the simple cut-and-paste jobs of Chain Letter, it's nice to finally get a look at a piece of fake news that a little effort was put into.

Bigify these to your heart's content, and you may just barely be able to make out the text. What's so special about it that it's worth covering?

Yup, it's all in Latin!

While these papers may not feature actual fake article written about the case, the fact that it's in an ancient language is an interesting enough quirk to deserve a little attention and applause, I think.

Sadly, however, a failure of either the prop designer's latin or Intertran's algorithm has left me unable to translate the text into English, but even despite that frustration, I'm still impressed by the extra mile they went for this insert.

My unbelievably uneducated latin has picked out the words for 'pain' and 'trouble' (I think) in there, so who knows - maybe this is even more clever than I thought, and the latin actually does reflect the plot!

Path of Evil is Just... Well... (Sigh)

Path of Evil opens with a long helicopter shot of the Oregon shoreline.

From this we can learn one of two things: A) The producers rented a helicopter or 2) They invested in some stock footage. Either way, it goes on for thirty second before someone starts talking, but don't worry - they've got time to kill. At 112 minutes, this film is twenty-six minutes longer than the previous entry, and nearly half-an-hour longer than it has any right to be, and they had to pad out the running time somehow.

The puzzling thing about the opening is not the fact of the monologue, which talks about how when the main character was a child, he heard evil voices telling him bad things were going to happen, and that his parents told him to say a prayer to keep things sunny and positive.

That seemingly didn't work out too well for them. Also, since the parents died in 1984, I can't really blame Jake for this, but couldn't someone have sprung for something more expensive than styrofoam for the comically small tombstones? Setting aside for a second the insanity of burying someone at the edge of a cliff (isn't that basically solid rock a foot down? And if not, aren't you encouraging a landslide?), what's going on with the little white crosses next to the little grey tombfoams? Were their pets also murdered?

Here's a tip for aspiring low-budget filmmakers who can't afford a convincing fake tombstone: film a real tombstone from a reverse angle, with the character looking down at it sadly. That way the wrong name isn't in the shot! Also, go at night, so people don't get all up in arms about you filming in their graveyard.

You know, I just realized that I've written four paragraphs about the first three shots of this film, at this rate (and seriously, given the content of this movie, I could keep going at this rate), we could wind up being here for twenty pages, so I'm going to move into another format now, addressing some of the issues the film has, point-by-point.

Path of Evil is a Sequel to Harvest of Fear... or Maybe Not

Oh. How disappointing. Well, not disappointing, entirely - but I feel kind of silly for building the movie up so significantly in my imagination before seeing it. In my defense, the reason I was confused by the IMDB and DVD box synopses is that Path of Evil isn't really a sequel to Harvest of Fear, so much as it's the sequel to the movie that the filmmakers behind Harvest of Fear wished that they'd made.

Yes, much in the same way that the novel 'The Lost World' was a sequel to the movie version of Jurassic Park, as opposed to the book, Path of Evil is a sequel to a hypothetical version of Harvest of Fear that we, the audience, didn't actually see. Also, confusingly, despite the fact that the plot largely doesn't make sense if you haven't seen the first film, Path of Evil only works for people who haven't previously watched Harvest of Fear. I'll explain why momentarily, but first, allow me to delineate all the ways in which the the events of Harvest of Fear have been altered to become Path of Evil.

What, exactly, is Path of Evil?

While writing about Harvest of Fear I naturally swung by imdb.com to check on the production information (confirming the date because of the Electra costume, mostly), but a quick glance at the director's page led me to a shocking discovery. It seems the year after Harvest of Fear, the entire cast and main production staff re-teamed to make the film a second time, as something called 'Path of Evil'. It featured the same cast and basic plot, except for the fact that now the fey Sheriff's deputy seemed to be the main character - and had been given more backstory as a result.

I was faced with two options - find out the differences online, and look for some kind of production story explaining Path of Evil's (unprecedented?) existence, or immediately buy a film so I could go in completely cold, and experience the second version of the film with no biases. Naturally, I chose the second.

While waiting for my copy of the DVD to arrive I began to have doubts. Sure, the plot synopsis was slightly different, but did that really mean they shot a whole new movie? Perhaps it was largely the same footage, with a few new backstory scenes for Jake, and a new ending? Wouldn't that be disappointing after all this effort?

Luckily, the arrival of the DVD quelled at least some of my fears-

In addition to the slightly altered plot, get a look at that killer! Where the first film's murderer wore a generic stitchface mask and hoodie-

This DVD box promises a lawsuit-inviting reproduction of Michael Myers, boiler suit and all!

So unless the film's packaging is one big lie (not an impossibility), I think we're in for a treat! Now... to actually watch the movie, and find out just what Path of Evil is!

Harvest of Fear Makes No Amount of Sense

While writing extensively (the argument could easily be made 'too extensively') about the film Harvest of Fear, I neglected to mention how little of the movie actually makes sense. So, in order to make an attempt at entertainment (while the other articles were, apparently, attempts at writing chores - successful attempts!), I'm going to list some of the myriad ways in which the film steadfastly refuses to be coherent. Before starting, however, let me present you with the trailer for Harvest of Fear, which was helpfully included on my DVD copy of the film.

Now that you've seen the trailer, I don't have to worry too much about spoilers, since they're nice enough to give away the film's twist ending right at the end there.

What is a Sweet Vacation House Worth to You?

If you happen to be a character in the film 'Harvest of Fear', the answer is 'my life. I would gladly die to spend a few days in a small vacation house in a small forested town.'

I've struggled with the best way to explain just how absurd the decisions that these characters make are, and I've decided on the timeline/body count. So let's take a look a a chronological listing of the murders in the film Harvest of Fear, and the decisions that a group of college students make in response to them.

Harvest of Fear and the Three Unities

1 - The unity of action: a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few subplots.

2 - The unity of place: a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.

3 - The unity of time: the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours.

No one would be crazy enough to suggest that these rules should apply to all forms of fiction. They're simply a simple guideline to keep in mind when writing a play. By following them an author can be increase the chances that their play will be simple for the audience to keep up with and understand, and will avoid breaking their willing suspension of disbelief.

There's a reason that the main action of most slasher films takes place over no more than a few hours, or a day at most, and it's not because the filmmakers responsible for them have any particular love of those three unities. The fundamental reason behind this laser-like focus on time and place is a simple question of plausibility, that is to say: “Why don't they just leave?”