The Harvest sets itself up as a horror alternative, but cops out in the end.

SPOILER ALERT:This review gives things away that you will probably guess anyway.

How far would a parent go to save a terminal child?

It is a nightmare almost unimaginable to anyone without children.

The Harvestmay not appeal to most horror fans, but it is a horror movie.

You dont know its a horror movie until a full 44 minutes into it.

You know somethings off because the mother clearly is.

At first it looks like the tensions of any family dealing with an ongoing tragedy.

Katherine clearly browbeats her long-suffering husband Richard, played byThe Ice Manhimself,Boardwalk Empires Michael Shannon.

But the mystery deepens into something more insidious.

The terror comes from another parental nightmare, the kidnapping of a child from a hospital room.

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Katherine is a doctor.

Richard is a nurse.

Richard is the ultimate enabler.

He is under some form of control as his wife can cower him with the suggestion of a look.

It is a learned reaction from a lifetime of abuse.

Everything is obviously the opposite of what it seems and the obviousness about it shows further flaws.

The boy with the window display should probably be the one holed up somewhere.

And what happened with the kid who got hit in the chest with the baseball in the opening scene.

The payoff to that was so horribly saccharine it was terrifying in itself.

The acting is very committed, very real.

The kids dont force anything.

Shannon is always a tempered performer and he underplays here.

The makeup is first rate.

The early scene with the stitches looked very real.

Grin and bear it real.

The abdominal scar after the liver surgery made me itch.

But it was the smaller details that might go under the radar that were the most impressive.

Andys crushed fingers in the splint looked painful.

The Harvestloses a lot of points because of its copout ending.

Well, not happy for everyone.

The broken family at the center of the movie perish unhappily and thats not what they deserved.

The snails pace that led to the horrific revelations promised an intelligent alternative to cookie cutter horror.

Rating:

3 out of 5