User reviews

Got High On Life, and sat and watched the movie with Gene, we're cool now.

Plus it's got that one guy, dressed as a clown, and Bush, not sixteen stone either, the real deal.

I feel like Gene was just watching me the whole time, which was kinda creepy, at first I kinda missed the aerobics show with Denise Richards and Paul Walker (RIP!), but, this was pretty good. I'd say if your into weird stuff from the 80s, give it a shot. It might be as good as Killer Clowns From Outer Space, but then maybe not. I dunno, neither are as good as Over The Top, but, who could ever beat that?? Maybe like, the Bodyguard, or like, that really bad biker movie with Brian Bosworth, that I still watch every now and again cause it's a guilty pleasure.

Basically there are only two reasons to see "Blood Harvest" First, the falsetto wonder that was "Tiny Tim", playing "Marvelous Mervo", a drooling, slack jawed, giggling clown. Second, Itonia Salachek playing a naked girl throughout the film. Forget plot and acting skills, live with the fact that this is not the viscera-stained, sex, sleaze, and horror epic it is claimed to be. What "Blood Harvest" is, is a curiosity, much like a crowd would be drawn to a carnival sideshow, you sort of have to keep watching for the next "Mervo" appearance, or excuse for Itonia to lose her clothes. Certainly watchable, but just barely. - MERK

'60s ukulele-playing pop-star Tiny Tim's contributions to horror: that disturbing 'Tiptoe Through The Tulips' song featured in Insidious (2010) to great effect, and this late '80s slasher, in which the falsetto singer dons clown make-up and garb to play Mervo, a crazy weirdo who may or may not be a psycho killer.

The film begins with beauty Jill (Itonia Salchek) returning to her hometown to visit her parents, who have been harangued by the locals on account of her father working at the bank that is overseeing the foreclosure of several farmsteads. When she gets home, Jill's parents are nowhere to be found and the walls are daubed with threatening graffiti; the local sheriff does little to investigate. Old childhood friend Gary (Dean West) tries to calm Jill's nerves, but she feels increasingly uneasy, especially with Gary's oddball brother Mervo hanging around and snooping on her. To make matters worse, other people in Jill's life start to disappear, including her boyfriend Scott (Peter Krause) and best friend Sarah. Is Mervo responsible?

Wisconsin-based horror auteur Bill Rebane fails to keep up the brisk pace necessary for such nonsense, and some stretches are duller than watching wheat grow, but he knows well enough to include plenty of nudity courtesy of sexy Salchek, and some decent gore to keep viewers watching, the blood-letting including some convincing throat slashings (the effects far better than I expected). Rebane also makes the most of Tiny Tim, who proves effectively unsettling throughout, singing a few creepy ditties and generally acting convincingly deranged.

It's far from a top-tier '80s slasher (but then few late'-80s slashers are), but there's just about enough fun to be had to make it of interest to fans of the genre. 5/10.

I just watched this fave old horror movie of mine, Blood Harvest, in its DVD incarnation.

Do NOT buy this DVD, unless you can't get this movie elsewhere.

(And, yes, tho IMDB doesn't show it, Amazon is offering a DVD version of Blood Harvest for around $13 as of today, 9-20-03.)

This is edited in AT LEAST two key scenes. First of all, in the famous shower scene, Jill gets forced out of the shower when a "mysterious stranger" turns off the cold water. In my recorded-from-cable VHS version, an additional short scene shows Jill not only jump out, but grab a towel and flash a brief, but lovely, full frontal - and if you're familiar with the movie, you know the character Jill is especially gorgeous.

That's gone from the DVD. It shows the brief, unrevealing dash from the shower, then cut to Jill wearing a robe in the kitchen.

The scene of her friend hung upside down in the barn, stripped to lingerie, then her throat slit: on the DVD version, the portion where the girl's throat is slit, followed by a brief-but-gory squirting blood shot, is gone entirely from the DVD. Only a brief flash of the dead girl is shone.

There's more missing, but I haven't noted everything because of my extreme disappointment, and because I was too ticked not to get this review out and stop some poor soul from buying it.

Worse, the picture quality varies tremendously from the beginning (almost looks 3rd generation videotape), to almost passable high video tape quality. Nothing APPROACHING typical DVD quality, even for old films transferred.

In the credits, it mentions "International Director's Cut", or some such. What baloney. The film looks like religious censors when after it with hedge trimmers.

You've been warned.

Wait 'til late night cable shows it again, and record it on a good new tape or DVD.

This is a ripoff pressing, and I'm one of the suckers. Luckily, it was low price. But I'll continue watching my uncut, nearly as good picture (and warmer colors) VHS tape of 13 years.

This review DEFINITELY refers to the DVD version.

Extremely odd flick about a young woman (Itonia Salochek) who returns from college to discover that her parents are missing. Her neighbors are none other than preppy Dean West and his brother played by that lovable minstrel Tiny Tim, who may or may not know what has happened. Meanwhile, a masked killer slaughters whoever comes near the woman and just who it is becomes more and more obvious to the viewer past the first thirty minutes. Despite being notorious for Tiny Tim's one and only starring feature, this film is comprised mostly of hopeless time filler. Tiny Tim is fairly decent, however, as the creepy clown-faced weirdo who skulks around the farm. In fact it's his antics, Salochek's abundant nude scenes, and relatively realistic special effects which save this less than thrilling time waster. The only really effective scene is the opening sequence; featuring Tiny Tim squawking a tune in the dark. That's guaranteed to make your skin crawl in any film.

I think that how one rates and reacts to this movie has to do with the following:

Are you familiar with the oeuvre of director Bill Rebane? And if you are, do you consider (or admit) that you are a fan?

If you're not familiar with Mr. Rebane's other movies and just came to this because you either wanted to see Tiny Tim in a slasher movie, or were just looking for a weird, idiosyncratic take on the 80's slasher genre, then you may well enjoy this film. It's offbeat and has some twists and plot contrivances that you don't find in more mainstream films.

However, if you are one of the select few who have enjoyed/endured Rebane "masterpieces" such as "Invasion From Inner Earth" aka "They", "The Game" aka "The Cold", "The Alpha Incident", "Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake", then you may be as disappointed as I was after watching Blood Harvest.

Yes, it has some of the traits we have come to expect from other Rebane efforts...the odd characters, the sense of local color supplied by regional film-making, the juxtaposition of high drama with a sense of detachment provided via plot deficiencies and wooden performances.

But in the end there is something missing...whereas previous films by the director seemed to carve out their own peculiar identity through a sort of studied ennui, innocence, and single minded dedication to whatever peculiar sense of inspiration birthed the ideas that drove him to create, in Blood Harvest it seems that Rebane was content to be more follower than leader.

Tiny Tim is the standout actor here with most of the remainder of the cast unremarkable to wooden. While there is a decent quotient of gore and gratuitous nudity to be found, it just seems like padding and standard genre tropes.

While this may be an atypical and somewhat satisfying outlier for 80's slasher fans, this lacks the kind of Thorazine "magic" that the rest of the auteur's filmography contains.

At least for me.

In the opening scene, once I heard the voice, I knew it was Tiny Tim, and he plays Mervo the clown. He has a brother, Gary, who really loves Jill. Jill comes home to be with her parents, but they are no where to be found. However, Jill is engaged to Scott so that ruins Gary's hoped for marriage with Jill. Mervo walks around with clown make up and seems a bit on the dull side, but also seems gentle. Jill's friend Sarah comes to visit at the farm house, and when she is about to leave, finds the car is locked, and along comes a threatening stranger. Rather then run the few feet to the house door, she runs into the woods. Not the best idea. Scott, engaged to Jill, gets together with Jill at the farm house, is leaving in his car when he sees something ominous and investigates. Not a good idea either. There is nudity, but it doesn't save this film, although Gary certainly plays it to the max. In a low budget film, one is not looking for greatness and one will not find it in this film. A flaw that becomes obvious is after Gary suffers a rather nasty and bloody wound. Neither the blood nor the wound is consistent throughout successive scenes.

I saw this movie on the Brentwood DVD, included in the Psychotic Tendencies 4-pack. It would seem to be the same cut version described by another user on the single disc DVD. Nevertheless, there is a fair amount of blood and nudity, including full-frontal nudity albeit in a different scene than the shower one.

I thought this movie was pretty effectively creepy. The beginning is disorienting. A clown sings in a high pitched vibrato "Gary and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Gary fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after" which he repeats. There's a shot of a pulley raising something, which proves to be a dead man hanging upside-down. Then there's a shot through a rainy window of police arriving and taking a body, and we see a young man looking through the window. Then there's an auction of a farm, and we see the clown without his makeup on looking upset, and there's a quick flash of the hanging man. Then there's a young woman walking down a road, while in voice-over she's having a phone conversation with her mother about arriving home.

The young woman is the daughter of an unpopular banker, unpopular because his bank is seizing farms. When she arrives home, her parents aren't there and her house has been vandalized. The clown is there, and clearly he's not all there. It turns out that he is Mervin "Merv" AKA Marvelous Mervo the clown, and he's the brother of Gary who is her ex-high school boyfriend. She's now engaged to someone she met in college.

Someone is killing people, and hanging them in her creepy barn, which she never goes into. Merv keeps showing up and acting weird. She realizes more people are disappearing. There are some scenes that make for high contrasts, as when she is hugging a stuffed animal, while elsewhere someone is being killed. Or, a scene of her unknowingly being chloroformed in her sleep, posed for a bondage Polaroid, and waking none the wiser being followed by a genuine sensitive lovemaking scene. There are a number of pretty sadistic scenes.

Tiny Tim plays Mervo and he sings to himself or to others a few times throughout the movie. Over the end credits, he sings an entire song "Marvelous Mervo." I rather enjoyed it! The DVD in the set lacks the extras the single disc is supposed to have. I'm curious how Tiny Tim got involved with the movie, which evidently those extras do touch upon. It would be nice if the uncut version were rereleased, or for those scenes to be included as an extra. It does happen sometimes that the director's cut is shorter than the original theatrical or straight to video version.

An overly bizarre, and sketchy regional psychosexual slasher (filmed in Winconsion) made the more interesting for singer Tiny Tim's starring role as the "Marvellous Mervo". He really gets into the part dressed up most of the time in clown make-up & costume, dramatically spouting his dialogues as if he's reciting shakespeare, creeping on Itonia Salchek and obviously breaking into song every now and then to add to his unstable character. We even get an original Tiny Tim jingle over the end credits. His off-kilter, yet misunderstood performance is the drawcard. Sadly everything else is beyond clunky and inchorent, but this no surprise if you're familiar with director's Bill Rebane's work.

Jill Robinson returns to her rural hometown to face hostility as her home has been defaced, her parents are missing and the whole town hates her banker father due to farmers losing their homes. There she becomes a target of somebody who seems to have in for her. The only two people who are happy to see her is an ex-boyfriend and his mentally not there brother.

There's something so otherworldly, and dreamlike to Rebane's execution... flatly ramshackle, yet hypnotic as the narrative erractically jumps between scenes. I felt like i was caught in a daze. It was hard to understand what was going on in the first few minutes, then we follow an annoyingly clueless and grating protoginist (Salchek) make dumb decisions one after another. A lot poor judgement, and unusual character actions on show mainly caught in the one location. The first half feels oddly sluggish and disjointed, but after an hour or so it eventually falls into the usual psychotic, and sleazy slasher pattern of the unseen stalker/tormentor turned killer, where they repetitively tie (the few) victims upside down from the rafters of the an old barn to slit their throats. The climax is surely nutty with over delivered lines, and cheesy crazy facials, but the mundane (and foreseeable) reveal doesn't match it.

An understandably unpopular man who conducts auctions on forecloures and his wife disappear, random murders start and the couple's daughter feels menaced. Tiny Tim is a sideshow act--a carnival clown, apart from this movie, his real-life profession where the director saw and hired him, and how he died in penury, after being the biggest thing ever on Johnny Carson 20 years previous. Talk about being hired solely for full frontal nudity, this lead is definitely up there with the worst sexploitation"actresses" ever, who, after this single credit apparently disappeared off the face of the earth, quite possibly from embarassment. In fact, her IMDB bio even contains a plea for any information regarding her whereabouts, probably from a horny fan. After an initial body drops, hung upside down, throat slit, it's another half hour of her tedious whining before another stiff shows up. There's an icky attempted rape scene where a "friend" tries to sexually assault her, nude,and.unconscious, revealing a damning flaw in the seeming friend's character.

All in all, just another bad horror movie.

Blood Harvest (1987)

** (out of 4)

Jill (Itonia Salchek) returns home to her parent's farm in Wisconsin and she quickly learns that the town people aren't too happy with them. She also soon realizes that both of them are missing and before long she and her friends come under attack by a masked maniac who enjoys cutting throats. Is it the mentally disturbed Mervo (Tiny Tim)?

Director Bill Rebane (THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION) apparently saw TIny Tim at a local fair and decides to pitch him on the idea of appearing in a slasher film. Apparently Tim liked the idea or perhaps he needed the money but either way the end result is a rather interesting slasher and one that for the most part is entertaining.

If you're expecting a masterpiece or some sort of high art then you're going to be disappointed because BLOOD HARVEST clearly wears its low-budget. The various trappings of low-budget horror films from this era are on full display but if you're a fan of the genre then you know that you just have to deal with those. Outside of that there's a fairly interesting movie here that works on several levels.

For starters, I actually thought the story itself was good enough for this type of film and I really enjoy the lead character even though the screenplay allows her to do some rather stupid things. I thought the entire set-up was decent and I'd argue that the settings were good. The film also offers up some good gore effects as long as you're watching the uncut version. Apparently the director went back and edited out some gore and nudity when he was running for office (?!?!?) so be sure you get the complete version.

The film also offers up quite a bit of nudity from lead actress Itonia Salchek and that's certainly not a bad thing. In fact, I must say that I thought she delivered a good and fun performance. As I said, there are countless low-budget issues here but I thought the actress helped make the film entertaining. The supporting players are decent but, again, the low-budget leads to some less- than-wonderful performances. With that said, seeing Tiny Tim in this kind of movie just adds a whole new atmosphere that you won't find in any other slasher.

BLOOD HARVEST isn't a masterpiece and it's certainly not a classic. It's not even a "good" movie but if you're a fan of the genre then it's certainly worth watching and I think the film rightfully deserves its cult following.

Blood Harvest is not a good film, to say the very least; but I enjoyed watching something that was definitely not a gem of its time! The bad "side pony-tailed hair" styled women, extreme bad clothing designs featuring some of the worse fashion mistakes in history and the lazy script makes this film so bad, it must be seen to be believed....and that's not it. This bad, blast-from-the-past even has its very own "Weird Al" character who has a serious identity crisis. Blood Harvest doesn't offer much for gore fans, so I encourage you watch this film as satire. The storyline was the only piece of the film that could've been salvaged; even the camera work sucked!

This one truly qualifies as an unexpected but incredibly pleasant surprise! Bill Rebane, the notorious director of widely acclaimed BAD movies such as "The Giant Spider Invasion" and "The Demons of Ludlow", actually managed to deliver a decent 80's slasher movie near the end of his career! "Blood Harvest" surpasses all of Rebane's previous films in terms of plot outline, character drawings, suspense, excitement and viewer's involvement. I would even go as far to call "Blood Harvest" an underrated and wrongfully neglected 80's slasher that deserves to have more fans! Country girl returns home from college to the little hillbilly town where she grew up, but finds her parents missing. For you see, her parents own the local bank and lately a lot of the farmers got disowned and evicted from their property, so the Robinson family isn't exactly popular anymore. The only persons still willing to talk to Jill are the Sheriff, albeit reluctantly, her best friend Sarah and the boy she was supposed to end up with if she had stayed in Hicksville. Oh, and a clearly deranged guy who dresses up like a clown and chants horrendous crooner songs. Apparently this guy's name is Tiny Tim and he was a fairly famous singer/ukulele artist during the 1960's. Thank God I'm not familiar with him at all. He calls himself Marvellous Mervo and his appearance scared the hell out of me. When multiple people start disappearing one by one, also including Jill's college boyfriend who came over for a visit, it's becoming apparent that somebody has a personal vendetta towards Jill. "Blood Harvest" is perhaps a bit slow in certain places, but widely compensates this through nasty and unsettling murder sequences where people are hung upside down in a barn, like cattle in an abattoir, and cut open from ear to ear. There's a good and genuinely creepy atmosphere and a couple of delightfully demented sequences, like when the crazed guy tries to make love to Jill when she's in a state of shock. That's quite sick! This film has a good soundtrack, decent performances from a unknown cast members, violence and nudity aplenty and a really profound directing job from Bill Rebane. It's a really cool and unjustly hidden gem of 80's horror and definitely comes recommended to fans of the genre.

This 1987 release kind of reminds me of a horror film that would be an alright release from 1970.

The movie is mostly boring with not a lot of "slasher" action going on since the movie really doesn't have more than a handful of locations, characters and clearly lacks a good effects team(I can see the blood pumping line in the shot.) The deaths are tame, but probably wouldn't be for a 1970 movie.

The amount of who done it characters is so small that there isn't much wiggle room to guess who it is, and you regularly see the killer wearing a stocking over their head which they are pretty identifiable.

The killers motive and ending doesn't much sense at all, making the viewer confused on why certain events happened earlier in the film.

The production is fine. The acting is ok, with a few characters getting a bit too hammy for my tastes. Tiny Tim(who I barely have any knowledge of) makes up for a lot of that hammy-ness.

I write reviews and leave ratings so I can remember what I have watched. I will forget pretty much everything about this movie in a few months and I would guess that is how others will feel to about this otherwise unremarkable film.

Its also slash and gore. Its MEANT to be cheesy. And it does right well with that. Overall: Not a bad flick, and certainly not the greatest. But it has one grand redeeming quality. Tiny Tim. My opinion: The man had a lot more talent than he got credit for. He had only 15 minutes of fame only because he was stuck in a certain place and the public moved on. Had he moved with the fans, instead of standing still, he'd of had more than 15 minutes. Why did he not move on with the fans? I haven't a clue other than he was who and what he was and, being eccentric being what it is, its was probably intolerable for him to change. I can understand that. Granted, this review deals more with Tiny Tim than it does the movie but thats because the movie is HIS flick. Its entirely worth watching, especially if your one of his die-hard fans. Which thing I am. If you think Tiny Tim was weird, I'M the one with a ukulele hanging on my wall and an 8x10 autographed pic of him framed underneath it. Did I mention I was a fan? A note to anyone who might like to watch this film: It goes by various titles, which fact can make it hard to locate. Blood Harvest, Nightnare, and The Marvelous Mervo are three that I'm aware of. There may be other titles for it as well. But its worth the search, and Tiny Tim is, 15 minutes of fame aside, STILL worth the time.

A college student returns to her hometown in northern Wisconsin (Itonia Salchek) only to find her parents missing and the townspeople hostile due to her father representing the bank that has been dispossessing farm families through foreclosure. Her ex-beau tries to help (Dean West) while his brother (Tiny Tim) has gone loopy in order to handle what happened to their parents. Peter Krause makes his acting debut as the girl's fiancé.

"Blood Harvest" (1987) is a micro-budget slasher shot in one day & night by Wisconsin filmmaker Bill Rebane. He met Tiny Tim performing at a beer carnival in Lincoln County and this flick is the result. It's incredible that it was shot in a 24-hour period because it's technically well done all things considered.

The only issue is that there's an air of emptiness to the slow-moving proceedings, which is why some viewers don't like it. By 'emptiness' I mean that the entire story takes place at or nearby the farmhouse & barn, except for a few scenes in town (the diner, the police station and a church). In its defense, "Friday the 13th Part III" (1982) and "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) did the same thing and few people criticize them for it.

What contributes to the hollow air is the fact that there are only 3-4 main characters (all cited above) with the addition of two peripherals, the amusing Sheriff (Frank Benson) and the girl's friend, Sarah (Lori Minnetti).

The director filled up a good part of the runtime by effectively showcasing winsome Itonia Salchek's unique beauty. (There's some tasteful nudity, so stay away if that offends you). This was her sole film.

Tiny Tim's clown character is interesting because he reminds me of someone I know. These types of hulking guys have a genuine innocent ambiance, but there's also the slight perception of potential violence. Think Lennie from "Of Mice and Men." They resort to eccentricity or goofiness to cope with the sad hand that life has given them.

At the end of the day this is a straight-forward slasher artistically done on a miniscule budget. Enjoy it for what it is.

The film runs 1 hour, 28 minutes, and was shot in Gleason, Wisconsin, and nearby Irma and Merrill, all of which are in the north-central part of the state.

GRADE: B-/B.

A young woman (Itona Salochek) comes back from college to find her parents missing and their home vandalized. She suspects the worst since her dad was in charge of foreclosing on local farms for the bank. The local sheriff is less than helpful though (he's much more interested in his softball league). Meanwhile, she finds herself the object of rather obsessive attention from her former childhood boyfriend and his oddball, mentally challenged brother (Tiny Tim) who sings creepy songs and dresses up like clown (the "Marvelous Mervo").

For some reason, slasher fans don't seem to care for this movie, perhaps because the first murder doesn't occur until some forty minutes in. They're certainly suitably bloody though with victims being tied up upside-down and their throats slit so they can be bled like pigs. There's also a lot of time for character development, which in the case of Ms. Salochek fortunately means many long, completely gratuitous, full-frontal nude scenes (She's actually not that attractive with her clothes on, but wait until she takes them off. Wow!) This is also kind of an unusual setting for a slasher movie. If John Cougar Mellencamp ever made a horror movie it might look something like this. The director, Bill Rebane, is one of these guys who can't really be called "good" or "talented", but his movies are always interesting. He once dressed a VW Bug up as a giant spider in "The Giant Spider Invasion". "The Capture of Bigfoot" was one of the most wacko of many wacko 70's bigfoot movies. "The Demons of Ludlow" was the touching story of a small Midwestern town and their demonically-possessed grand piano. This movie is pretty much the same way, especially considering the main stars were a never-to-be-seen-again Eastern European actress who can't keep her clothes on for five minutes, and Tiny Tim, a VERY odd folk singer from the late 1960's. (He's surprisingly good though).

It does have its flaws. It's pretty slow in places, and the identity of the killer is pretty obvious as there are only two or three possible suspects (and one them is the reddest herring imaginable). Still, I saw this movie back-to-back with "Nail Gun Massacre", a movie slasher-movie fans really rave about, but I liked this one far better. Recommended, no matter what anyone else says.