“Fields of the Dead” ends with a ghost asking “Do you understand now?” to another ghost that affirms in reply. Based on that I guess I’m glad someone got it even if it is fictional. Personally, there are a number of things I never quite figured out. The trailer of “Fields of the Dead” hints at an “Evil Dead” setup that reads as, “they read the book… and unleashed evil.” Redbox sums it up as “a group college students ‘demon’ summon ‘doing the boogey.’” Factor in a clip of one of those students describing the death cult of a tribe that has been investigated in the abandoned farm and here’s yet another backstory plentiful with truly horrific prospects. In reality “Fields of the Dead” is just a simple story of one person becoming possessed and killing the others in a fairly straightforward manner. There are ghosts but no demons. And there is a problematic book too, but nothing can be drawn along the lines of calling it something like the Necronomicon.
The book serves as a diary that reveals very little. The journal, which is found land in the middle of a cornfield, managed to survive to over 200 years of plowing and raging rain storms. This remarkable journal shows so few sings of age. There is more wonder, however, in how the thin book spans over ten years in the life of area settler Emma Cartwright. It is almost as if her only entries were the portions that were necessary for advancing the plot. Providing even further evidence to the miracle is the way that the pages in the book span the entire decade.
This diary serves as a bigger hindrance to the production other than the characters. The pages of the book are observable in more than one scene and are quite literally evidence of shots of a professionally printed book. In closer shots, the pages are handwritten like an old book and are expected to be yellowed with age. A few of the wider shots digitally superimpose the handwritten paneled pages into the book. Some of them do not. The absence of the digital page may have made it more subtle, however, before the image disappeared completely the page bounced around in an attempt to synchronize with the movement on screen.
Students investigating the abandoned farm gather information regarding the family that settled in around Cartwright-Dunhill, a region that is supposedly somewhere in the United States. One of the student researchers is wearing a Colorado State University tee while another one has a New Hampshire state seal shirt, but also wears a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, so one might wonder where this is supposed to be set.
The set of student researchers is made up of a group of mostly dull individuals. The only other who might pass as a deep thinker is the wisecracking goofy jock, who is a wacko in almost all respects. In the other category, there is the guy with glasses, the blonde with short hair, the blonde with long hair, and the other blonde with long hair.
In the one hour following the pre-credits sequence, there is only one death. While it makes for a terrible movie, it is strange to have a main cast of seven people for seemingly no reason other than to kill them off one at a time. Instead, “Fields of the Dead” manages to occupy its time with meandering shots of walking through cornfields, taking dirt samples, and staring at broken pieces of wood in an ancient barn.
In the end it seems, “Fields of the Dead” only finishes after distorting the narrative to a degree that would make a robot’s head explode from a “does not compute” error in logic. Everything feels like it is leaving something out, and the ending credits suggests that is most likely the case.
An actor named Bill Wassem has a credit at the beginning and end of the movie. The cast list shows he took on the role of Dr. Foy, a character I am sure is mentioned, but cannot recall ever appearing. Pool Players, Dancing Girls, and Party People are also credited. Like many of the other cast members, these people were never shown in the actual film. Somewhere there is that lost footage. And perhaps buried in that could be the fragments that show the reason behind the good girl ghost going bad, what is actually said when the garbled male ghost voice is heard, the Jack Cartwright true father mystery, and the rest of the film’s every detail that never seems to come together.
However, they are not gaps to think about for too long. A film like “Fields of the Dead” will not have you wondering because there is nothing to really hate it for, but there is equally nothing to appreciate. All those questions that, in other movies, would be so very fascinating along with the movie itself, just vanish the second the disc is put back into the slot of the kiosk.
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