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The Maize: The Movie (2004) More at IMDbPro »

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65 out of 68 people found the following review useful:
Okay, look..., 7 November 2006
1/10
Author: thejellotheory from United States

I couldn't even...I mean...look....okay...

Wow.

Not even a bunch of my drunk friends trying to make fun of the movie could enjoy themselves in the least bit.

I can only think...how. How do independent film makers everywhere go years without getting noticed (or even their lives) and con-artists like the guy who made this get a DVD on a shelf? It seriously looks as if some guy with a home movie camera went out with some guys he met at Subway and made the worst thing he could think of.

"Hey guys, give me some ideas. Start with a corn-field and work backwards." "Well, you've gotta have actors straight out of high school, and some broken corn stalks with shreds of clothing attached. And boobs." Thanks, guy, I'm sure that you and Windows Movie Maker will be side by side on your next anxiously awaited project.

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46 out of 52 people found the following review useful:
Run around in a cornfield for two hours! FUN!!!, 8 April 2006
1/10
Author: cdctrumpet from United States

No. Just NO. That's all that needs to be said.

Summary: A random guy is in a cornfield. For some reason, I'm not sure, but it's his duty to run around inside. The next great thriller?

A five year old could make a better movie just filming an anthill, or even just grass growing. Seriously.....

You can't say it has bad acting, because there is NO acting. You can't say it has bad writing, because it has NO writing. You can't say it has bad cinematography, because there is NO cinematography. You can't say it's a bad movie, BECAUSE THERE IS NO MOVIE! If you don't believe me, go watch it. Just don't say I never warned you.....

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37 out of 40 people found the following review useful:
I'm aMAIZEd this made it to the video store shelf, 2 November 2005
1/10
Author: TTUCHY from Los Angeles, CA

I rented Dark Harvest (the first one) because it looked like a cheesy monster-on -the-box type of thrill ride. Scarecrows also freak me out. The movie had an effective title sequence, but what followed was pretty lame (flat, bad lighting, acting, editing, direction...). Recently, I noticed that DH 2: The Maize had a pretty extensive ad campaign. I thought maybe the first one was marginally successful, so they upped the ante on this one a bit, possibly delivering some bigger budget scares and fx from the killer scarecrows. Well, there are no scarecrows in the video... Not a problem. The problems start in DH 2 with a title sequence that looks like an unfinished concept, with strange shapes and bars wiping away titles and whatnot. As far as the actual photography... every time the sun shines in a shot, you'd have all these blown out whites, confirming that you're watching some ultra-low budget mini-DV project that some Midwesterner filmed at his Uncles farm. The acting was not acting at all. The cheap rip-off of The Shining twin girls was below freshman film student standards. The editing was extremely amateur and lazy. The sound was jarring and choppy. (e.g.- every time the editor would cut to a new shot, you'd here the sound change perspective with it). It's as if someone gathered their friends and family (actors), took a video camera out in a cornfield for three days, put a light on top of it for the night sequences (no joke - that's what they actually did), burned through some tape, stuck the footage in their computer, cut a (very) rough version, tossed in some music, bypassed any imaginative sound work or mixing, burned it directly to DVD, and threw it on the video store shelf. Any horror fan should be insulted by this type of direct to video work that is void of ANY skill or style. Just because a person owns a video camera and is able to get somewhat of an image on tape, doesn't mean it should be released to the public. If I could give this a rating lower than a ONE, I would.

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36 out of 44 people found the following review useful:
This movie should have been burnt, not put on video store shelves, 5 November 2005
1/10
Author: psumommaof2 from United States

This is absolutely the most stupidest movie ever produced in front of a camera. I cant believe I was gullable enough to rent this piece of junk. I have seen some bad movies in my time, But this takes the cake....Ice cream ,,,, and Chips Too. Omg, I still cant get over how bad this thing was. The acting was a Joke.... The Plot was Non Exsistant..and the camera work had to be done by a 3 year old child. I have never seen a movie take so long to go Nowhere. I mean the whole movie could have been shot is less than 30 minutes. I guess this guy had some extra time on his hands.... ( Like 3 Hours. ) And an extra 60 bucks in his wallet, and decided one night...( Hey ..Lets go make the stupidest movie ever made. ) And they did just that. Give me a break.I'm heading back to the video store right now to get Demand my money back.Anyone else who has watched this piece of trash, should do the same.

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21 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
A documentary on corn would have been scarier than this..., 22 October 2005
1/10
Author: 10ThingsIHateAboutUXtra from Tacoma, WA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A guy, with the unlikely name of Shy Walker, looks for his two daughters in a cornfield for an hour and a half. That's the entire plot...with across-the-board bad acting, of course. Walker wanders around a corn maze (maize? I get it! HAHAHA...not funny) and yells "Girls? Where are you?!?" about 1000 times. For some reason whenever he runs by a pumpkin, a chipmunk-sounding voice laughs (as if the pumpkin is laughing at him, yeah OK...). His daughters scream for most of the movie...even when there is no reason to scream (maybe because they are still stuck in this awful movie?). Twin girls straight out of 'The Shining' show up every now and then. Most of the corn maze looks the same so Walker's search gets very old very quickly. The filmmakers realize there is NOTHING going for this movie (even the music is repetitive) so they try to make things interesting by spinning the camera around really fast, filming upside down, inserting smaller pictures of the same shot at different angles, using red lights to make the corn look scary, and rotating the camera 360 degrees (at least I'm assuming these were done intentionally but it's likely just examples of incompetent film-making). More often than not, when Walker is wandering through the maze, you can't see his face. I guess the kid holding the camera can't look up that high... This movie gives you a new appreciation for the original 'Dark Harvest' (which doesn't have anything to do with this movie except for the fact it also features a cornfield). Don't be fooled by the R rating. Walker says the F word three times and now we have "an R-rated horror movie", ugh. The scarecrow on the cover doesn't even show up in this movie...and when you are wishing that those cheesy scarecrows from the first movie would come back, you know things are bad! Instead we get a guy in yellow boots chasing our hero around (unfortunately he is dressed similar to Mr. Walker so I didn't even realize he was being followed for a while). I figured out the identity of the guy in the yellow boots long before Walker did (the movie is almost over by the time he puts 2 and 2 together, natch). The end of the movie drags on and on...and just in case it isn't slow enough, there's some slow-motion! The last sound you hear (besides your own laughter) is very poor sound-dubbing. In case you can't tell, this is the worst movie I've ever seen. At least they didn't end with the promise of another sequel!

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19 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Maybe if cornfield mazes scare you..., 18 February 2006
1/10
Author: tonylaird from Kentucky

Besides the comments on the technical merits of the production, or lack thereof, the acting is absolutely horrible. What is really scary about this movie is that I actually OWN a copy of it, of course, it was in a bargain bin and had been renamed as "Dark Harvest 2", and after having seen it, I can understand why it was in the bargain bin - they should have paid me for taking it out of their inventory.

The majority of the movie, if you want to call it that, is spent by a frantic father running around a corn field maze looking for his daughters because he has a premonition that something is going to happen to them. I suspect that the camera that the girls were playing with at the beginning of the film was probably one of the production cameras for this fiasco. In the maze, he runs into the ghost of some children, which are poorly done, and the movie goes horribly south from there.

I can see why they renamed this movie, otherwise, they would never have gotten rid of them. Absolutely one of the worst movies I have ever had to sit through, and it wasn't worth the $2 I spent on it.

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20 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
This is Lion's Gate's Fault., 30 December 2005
1/10
Author: sparkletight from United States

Anyone can make a movie these days. Budget, production value, or experienced crew don't have to stop the self described "director" from "realizing their dream" these days.

Respect for the craft of film-making, or even just respect for any film aesthetic are no longer prerequisites for actually executing a film.

Director Bill Cowell must have thought he struck gold when Lion's Gate decided to market his original film as a sequel to a film he had nothing to do with.

I personally find Lion's Gate far, far more in error than Cowell in regard to Dark Harvest 2 being made available to the public. Lion's Gate's deceptive marketing of this film should be investigated by the state attorney general's office and Lion's Gate's officers should be pickled in sulfuric acid and kerosene for their utter disregard for film, film-making, and good sense.

As for the film itself, it's not even worth commenting on.

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20 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
Agree with other poster, 11 December 2005
1/10
Author: lucian_13_ from United States

Completely agree with other review.

I watched this movie for about 5 minutes. I looked up the one review on another site and found that it wasn't even a real sequel. This was after I slowly backed away from the TV with remote in hand, jaw dropping lower and lower.

The quality of the filming is beyond low budget. It doesn't even look like a freaking movie. If I were watching 'home video' footage from a documentary I would expect it.

In summary: Avoid, avoid avoid. Boooo Lion's Gate!

Completely ashamed of myself for watching 5 minutes and I hope that I've saved others from renting or owning it.

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21 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
Without a shadow of a doubt..., 30 September 2006
1/10
Author: odinfire from United States

This IS the worst movie I have ever seen, as well as, the worst that I will probably EVER see. I see no need to rehash what all the others have said previously, just be forewarned...

This IS NOT one of those bad movies you think you want to watch because you want to be able to make fun of it, its just plain BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD.

This movie is the equivalent to having a "pet rock" as your friend. You wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for something to happen. Unfortunately, it never does. At least with a pet rock you knew what you were getting into. Lion's Gate completely deceives on this bombshell... No...this is a disaster. After watching this film, you would swear George W. Bush had his hands all over the making of this film... yes its that idiotic.

Stay away, unless of course you just want to watch the worst movie of all time. Its probably how Lion's Gate figured it would make some money off this piece of tripe.

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15 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Below the lowest expectations for a direct to Video Title, 19 December 2005
1/10
Author: StoneGriffin

Only adding to the chorus of people who deemed this to be 'unredeemable' I will state the following without repeating the obvious FLAWS plainly stated by some of the other commentators: The "film" is shot on video (what type of camera I don't know) but the cameraman had it on AUTOFOCUS(!) all the time, so that any slight movement makes it go In and Out of focus. In many of the scenes the actors themselves go OUT of focus for their scenes. This alone screams "Amateur".

I also noticed that out in the 'middle of the cornfield', you can hear the sound of the gasoline generator that is powering the lights ... loudly.

Also what is with that single lighting source that follows (and many times 'leads' the actors) when they walk around. It looks like a newscaster with that 'on camera light' that follows the people around like a spotlight. There was no 'credit' for lighting design/DP and I know why. The 'filmmakers' saw no need to have someone who actually knew what they were doing lighting this picture (note I didn't say "film"). So be prepared for a SINGLE glaring spotlight as the sole source of 'cinematic lighting' for most of the movie. UGhhh!!!

This is probably the most technically inept production I've ever seen commercially released. I "bought" this title because I like bad cinema. Usually it's so bad that you can laugh at it. This is just so bad that it's unwatchable. Plan Nine from Outer Space is "Citizen Kane" in comparison to this title.

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