Things I learned while watching “Dark Harvest”

1. If you find out that you’ve just inherited land from a dead family member and the only thing you’re told about the land and the house in advance is that no one (except for one real estate appraisal man who happens to be damned lucky he wasn’t out appraising under the light of the full moon) has gone anywhere near it since the 1930’s, just don’t go. In fact, have the place demolished. And have napalm rained on the fields if at all possible.

2. If you go anyway, you’re probably an idiot, in light of everything I’m about to share with you. This is especially true in cases that involve a long-deceased relative having made a pact with the devil and/or having murdered drifters so to affix them to wooden stakes and use them as scarecrows, but probably applies in any one of a variety of situations.

3. If you go, and you wind up bringing your girlfriend and your four closest mutual friends, then not only are you an idiot, but you’re an ass, too.

4. There’s nothing wrong with a bunch of naked women drinking beer while alternately sunbathing and swimming. This is something I’ve always known, but it’s really good to reinforce these stores of knowledge every once in a while.

5. In the grand kill-the-minorities-first tradition of most classic horror films, and some of the not-so-classic ones as well, your lesbian friend is going to die first, and can expect to suffer beheading and dismemberment. It will be icky, and everyone will see it. You know. For effect.

6. This is only a temporary reprieve for your black male friend, who normally would die first, but has been bought a little bit of time by the lesbian. He will, however, suffer a catastrophic injury very early on, such as stabbing-by-scythe-through-door-by-zombie-scarecrow, just so that he can be dragged along by everyone else – quite obviously in agonizing pain and for a ridiculously long period of time when one considers the serious nature of his injuries – until he suffers additional mutilation and finally manages to kick off. This will suck for him. Make no mistake.

7. It is completely ineffective to jab zombie scarecrows in the belly with wooden objects. Seriously. It just seems to piss them off. This probably also applies to metal objects. In fact, fire is pretty much your first and last line of defense, unless you can find some way to dismember them, which isn’t nearly as much fun to watch. The occasional explosion doesn’t hurt. It just punctuates your righteous indignation.

8. Do not, under any circumstances, stand around in large groups with open doorways directly behind you. This is stupid, and will only lead to trouble. Especially if said doorway opens onto a dark room.

9. Zombie scarecrows do not steal car keys. If you can’t find the car keys, this means that they have fallen out of your friend’s pocket as her headless corpse was being dragged off toward the fields by the ankles. Check the drag-tracks through the grass.

10. If your great grandfather is the long-deceased relative that tortured drifters to death while turning them into scarecrows which have since become zombies, he is clearly a redneck asshole. You should definitely find a framed photograph of your great grandfather standing next to one of his freshly constructed homemade scarecrows somewhere in his former residence (check all shelves) and break the glass in the frame with your fist while shouting something about what a stupid, redneck asshole he was. It won’t change anything, but it might make you feel better about your eviscerated girlfriend, whose corpse is currently a glorified lawn ornament in one of the corn fields you now own.