Man in the Fields was the directorial and writing debut of Samuele Breschi. The IMDB page states this was an American production, though it is clear that this was likely filmed in Italy, and featured a majority of Italian actors. I really wish this had stuck to Italian with English subtitles, as the characters all speaking English in thick accents really got in the way of my enjoyment of this subpar horror.
Misery guts David (Isacco Salvi who also co-wrote this with Breschi) has finally been convinced to hang out with his best friend Rob (Marco Cevoli) and his girlfriend Angela (Arianna Panieri) after avoiding them for a long time. He decides to bring new girlfriend Stephanie along (Sofia Pieroni), perhaps as a means to hurt his former girlfriend Linda (Martina Capaccioli). They had split when she moved away, but has now returned for a visit to see old friends. The friends are looking for something to do, and this is when David reveals that he recently came upon a strange ritual, and that he thinks they should all perform the ritual. Despite it literally having no good parts to it, and the group taking it super seriously, they are all shocked when it actually works. David is dragged to a field where a strange man (an excellent role by Toni Pandolfo) bleeds blood into his mouth. Later that day David transforms into a terrifying were-skeleton and sets about murdering the rest of the people involved in the ritual.
The story was really dumb and was something I really struggled to get past. I have no idea why the friends decided to perform the ritual. You can't excuse it as them just messing around as they all take it incredibly seriously, so it was strange when they acted so shocked when it worked. It didn't help the ritual wasn't so much a ritual as a curse, the instructions making it clear that it would basically result in everyone dying.
In addition to the characters being as dense as a bag of rocks, they were all an unlikeable bunch. The synopsis states David being an introvert, but he came across more as just a really unhappy guy, I felt for his new girlfriend even before the horror started. Linda was meant to be one of the more relatable characters but I have to admit I really struggled to understand a single line she said over the course of the 102 minute run time due to how quiet she said her lines coupled with a heavy accent. Worst of the characters was unfortunately Rob. He looked the part, but the angrier he got over the course of the film, the worse his acting skills became. It got to a point where literally every line he said had me laughing due to how badly he said them. The script admittedly also wasn't great, especially with side character Jonathan (Marcello Castiglioni) who may have been the stand out actor, but also had some of the more cheesier lines. I did a literal eye roll when he first appears and shouts to the group "Come with me if you want to live!". Again, I really wish this had been in Italian with subtitles as the often hard to understand dialogue repeatedly took me out of the film.
The creature effects for the transformed David were not bad. Weirdly, this is the second skeleton based horror I have seen this week after Bone Face. It always seems the films I choose to watch have some bizarre and unexpected link to them. There are a couple of decent kill scenes, in particular the creatures first kill was fantastic, shown via shadows, this was an effective and neat death scene. I had a little bit of a Pumpkinhead vibe to this, the film is dark and gritty with no light moments to be found at all. The story did leave a lot to be desired, and I felt the solution given to end the ritual was a bit underwhelming.
Man in the Fields had some good parts to it, the prologue sequence was intriguing and some of the kills looked good. It also had a neat score and some lovely lighting. Despite the goodness, it suffered mainly due to both a stupid plot, and actors often struggling to say their lines due to not speaking in their mother tongue. This had protentional but wasn't one of the better horror films I have watched this year.
SCORE:
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