In
the urban legend and I Know What You Did
Last Summer, the killer has a hook for a hand. Here, it is a pitchfork,
because folks on farms spend a lot of time baling hay and mucking out stalls.
This film could have stood a major mucking out as well, but here it is anyway:
Glenn Douglas Packard’s Pitchfork (trailer here), opening this
Friday in Los Angeles.
This
will be Hunter Killian’s first trip home from college since coming out over the
phone, so he has brought along the cast of Rent
for moral support. Of course, his dad is gruff and taciturn, while his mom
is all hand-wringy, so really nothing has changed. He also has a little sister
Jenny, who displays Horse Whisperer talents. On their first night at the
Killians’ farm, the kids through a barn dance, so they won’t notice Pitchfork
skulking about outside, just like the drove right by the attractive woman getting
killed during the prologue.
Naturally,
it takes about twenty minutes for sexual jealousy to cause dissension within
the ranks of the Scoobey Mystery Team. Matt would be the dog cheating on Clare
the hottie with Lenox, the other hottie. Meanwhile, the voracious Flo is
fulfilling her Amish fantasy, with a silent Pennsylvania German stud, who
presumably gets to drive his buggy home safely out of the carnage, since Packard
never bothers to tie up his loose end.
Pitchfork starts out mildly
lame, takes a horrifyingly cruel turn in the third act, and ends on a laughably
ridiculous, utterly offkey note. Therefore, you could say it covers a lot of ground,
but none of it involves being smart, funny, or scary. It is all just an
uncomfortable mess, but on the plus side, there are some short Daisy Dukes
sported by the ensemble.
