The Fields (2011)

Cloris Leachman (April 30, 1926–January 27, 2021) is beyond awesome.

Maybe you remember her Academy Award-winning turn as the neglected wife of a high school football coach in The Last Picture Show. Or the time she won an Emmy for her portrayal of Mary Tyler Moore’s nosy neighbor, Phyllis.

How about the two Emmys she took home as the weirdest granny of all time in Malcolm in the Middle?

Hell, she was Frau Blucher (*horse whinnies*) in Young Frankenstein! In her twilight years guested on American Gods and Dancing with the Stars! Let’s see you do that.

At age 85, she’s the best thing about The Fields, an eerie slow-burner co-directed by Tom Mattera and Dave Mazzoni.

Based on an actual occurrence from writer Harrison Smith’s childhood, the movie is set in 1973, and follows Steven (Joshua Ormond)—an angelic kid with hair like Robert Plant—who gets shipped off to live with his grandparents in rural Pennsylvania, after he witnesses Dad (Faust Checho) pointing a rifle at Mom’s (Tara Reid in a wig) noggin.

Enter Grandma Gladys (Leachmen) and Grandpa Hiney (Bev Appleton), who welcome the lad to their decrepit farm, surrounded on three sides by enormous (and dead) cornfields. Gladys tells young Steven to avoid the fields.

“We’ll never find ya in there, at least not till you’re all black and swollen,” she warns. Kids never listen.

On the other side of the cornfields is an abandoned amusement park currently occupied by a cult of evil hippie girls. Next door there’s a milk farm where Eugene (Louis Morabito), a dead ringer for Manson, works as a hired hand. Slowly, and with the inevitability of a bad dream, Little Steven finds himself surrounded on all sides by sinister forces.

If The Fields had just a smidgen more action or more beefy scares, I would be shouting my praises from the rooftops. As it stands, it’s a very watchable feature with an assortment of haunting touches.

Directors Mattera and Mazzoni capture the dread of being a child in an unfamiliar environment and without parents to explain life’s little mysteries: For instance, why is there a dead girl in the cornfield, and how come my cousins are all deformed lunatics?

And through it all, there’s Steven’s protector, Cloris Leachman, as a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking matriarch who likes to watch horror movies. The Fields is planted on her firm foundation.

Author: oldsharky

Sensible writer/editor with sparkling credentials who would happily work for you at a reasonable rate. I moonlight as a bass player, beer enthusiast, Trail Blazers fan, dog fancier, and horror movie fanatic. Sometimes I think about daily events too much and require a little help to clarify and process the deluge of information. View all posts by oldsharky