Horror as a genre always produce box office winners, because the visceral thrills that come with being scared out of your seat in a packed cinema remains one of the best communal aspects of the theatrical experience.
Admittedly, not all of the efforts to swamp the marketplace on an annual basis are of the highest quality, but next year’s Dark Harvest possesses plenty of terrifying potential. Norman Partridge’s source novel won the Bram Stoker Award in 2006, and the project was placed into development earlier this year with Casey Likes and E’myri Crutchfield in the lead roles.
The story opens in 1962, and revolves around a strange ritual called The Run that happens every Halloween in a small Midwestern town. You see, there’s a pumpkin-headed monster named Sawtooth Jack who rises from a cornfield every October, and local teenage boys are sent to chase him down, but very few of them survive. The winner gets a new car and a house for their family, but young Richie Shepard discovers some disturbing truths when his turn rolls around.
A new report offers that Vikings and Warcraft star Travis Fimmel is in talks to play Officer Jerry Ricks in Dark Harvest, who goes out of his way to try and ensure that Richie meets his end at the hands of Sawtooth Jack, putting the kid in serious danger on two fronts.
Vikings showed that Fimmel has plenty of smoldering charisma to spare, and it’s not a coincidence the show got noticeably weaker following his departure. 30 Days of Night and Hannibal‘s David Slade sounds like an excellent choice to direct Dark Harvest, which is coming to theaters in September 2022.