[The Empty Acre]
Plot:Set in rural, Kansas,an unseen force begins feeding on a small farming community.Late one night,during the summer,the unseen entity takes a couples baby.

Cast: Jennifer Plas, Robert Paisley, John Wilson, Ari Bave, Sally Bremenkamp, Tom Davis, Robert Campbell.

My Thoughts:It's like "The Messengers"...only lamer.

Review:"Empty Acre" is another B-horror film that implements what I've coined as "flashy storytelling". It's basically a method used in supernatural horror films where flashy editing is used to piece together a poorly written story, rather than using the methods of good writing. "Empty Acre" follows a husband and wife who move to rural Kansas (why, was rural Kentucky full?), with their newborn baby. Their new life seems to be going well, until the husband realizes that his land is nothing but dry, cracked asphault, and nothing seems to grow on it. Is this just a freak incident of nature, or is something supernatural at work? The real question is though...should we care? And why...should we care?

If you're like me, and having trouble believing that any sane husband and wife in their prime, would move to rural freaking Kansas to start up a new and exciting life, then you definitely won't believe anything beyond that which occurs in this movie. "Empty Acre" operates on the assumption that the audience just needs a good freak out with cheap fx. Of course that's not true, but the director and writer of this film gives it that old college try anyways. The movie is kind of like "Children Of The Corn" meets "The Messengers".

We have a body of land that seems impure and wrong on an ominous level, we have a mysterious figure that zips across the road from time to time, and a baby that vanishes into thin air like something out of a David Copperfield stage show. Sure, all of this might work...in some other movie! But not in "The Empty Acre". These mysteries are not explored deeply enough, and they are also poorly executed. For example, when the couples baby vanishes overnight, this occurance in the film is not fully explored beyond the movies lead actress.

Dad doesn't seem to care, and the same two rednecks at the local bar are the only people who seem to have sene anything that night. Although in their case, it could've been the liquor talking. Add to that, the film doesn't explore the baby's disappearance beyond a few shots of missing posters and a few police blotters. The couple doesn't even try to find their baby, they just go outside for 10 minutes, look around the farm, and go back inside telling their significant other "no luck". Of course...the couple is lured outside by the occasional baby-crying noises that become obvious to the viewer, are a mind-game of whatever lives below the impure land.

Of course these two dopes keep falling for the same trick night in and night out for some reason. "Empty Acre" pours on the boredom though in the middle of it'ss econd act, and it's entire third act, adding nothing new to the story, and not fully using what subplots it's already laid out. The ending of the movie is just a total mess, coming across as a mix between "Carrie 2" and some low-budget alien abduction flick. If there's one silver lining to this abomination, it's that the lead actress should have a pretty decent future in acting. "Empty Acre" is a huge mess, and a film that should for the most part be avoided at all costs.

Positives:The lead actress was decent enough.

Negatives:Bad script, poor acting by most of the cast, bad writing, and a serious lack of entertainment value.

Overall:Terrible picture.





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