Small Town Values - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

Alternate title: The How Quaint Horrors.
There's a sub-genre of mystery films that has to deal with small towns and isolated communities with a Big Secret. A mission, a way of life, a smiling, all-sacrificing commitment to The Greater Good. This week I'll tap several of them, though I'm not pretending fora moment this is an exhaustive list. These are just instances I've seen and remember.

  The usual approach is to have a main character - our surrogate - coming to some remote village, often on some professional mission. There he encounters a long-isolated society, which is initially quaint, even seemingly happy, but as time passes odd and worrying elements become apparent. Ultimately, the question of whether or not the newcomer will be able to leave usually becomes the main issue. Along the way, with the revelations about each community's beliefs and their shared secret, the viewer is challenged to at least consider the value of the trade-offs being made, and how well or not their system has served them.
  Twice, in 1973 (the lauded version) and for a generally disparaged remake in 2006, the big screen saw versions of The Wicker Man.

The 1973 version was more inspired by than really based on David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual.
   Starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland and Christopher Lee, it's a film with some impact. As with all but one on this list, though, it's not an upbeat time.
The 2006, Americanized, Nic Cage vehicle version was primarily a remake of the earlier film, that did try, at least a little, to look back to the 1967 novel for an item or two. Financially, both films did poorly, costing more to make than they took in at the box office.

   These are both most directly mystery films, with our surrogate being a police officer from the outside world coming to an island community in search of a missing person. One interesting twist, especially in the 1973 version, is that cultural elements toy with the audience, because at points the pagan culture of the island are likely to seem more pleasant and humanly accommodating than the narrow, dictatorial Christianity that rules the life of the frequently puritanically devout investigator who is aghast at each instance of what he views as gross impropriety or blasphemy. After a while I suspect that much of the audience remains tethered to him emotionally simply because he still represents us as the outsider who's trying to figure things out, and because he's trying to solve the mystery of a missing person, making him the only agent of possible justice. Still, this is not someone the average audience member not named Cotton Mather would strongly identify with, or even want to spend any time with socially.

  In 1978 NBC ran a 2-part miniseries called The Dark Secret of Harvest Home. A core selling point was that they could brag that the lead was long-time (mostly long ago, even at that point) star of screen Bette Davis.

  The full version, a little over 3 hours 48 minutes, is available in a less than sharp but otherwise watchable copy over on YouTube. (This is the full version link, rather than just a trailer --- which can be found over on YouTube, too.)

 

  A reasonably faithful adaptation of Tom Tryon's 1973 novel Harvest Home, the cast includes Rosanna Arquette, Rene Auberjonois, Norman Lloyd, not that they received top billing in 1978.
  Harvest Home shares the agrarian society underpinnings of Wicker Man, as the lives and rituals of the locals are tied to the success of their crops, and the harvest is central to the community's survival. Unlike the earlier film, our surrogate is the fatherly head of household, as he and his family have moved to the new community. This brings with it an array of plot possibilities, as it's not a lone outsider against growing suspicions, but someone who also is concerned about his family's well-being. This plays heavily in the ending.
  The rare action comedy twist on the genre came our way in Edgar Wright's 2007 Hot Fuzz (R, 121 minutes), starring Simon Pegg (who co-wrote) and Nick Frost. This is the second entry in the "Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy" collaboration between Wright, Pegg, Frost and producer Nira Park, though there are no direct character or story/continuity connections between the films.

  The story, pace and characters all work very well for me here, as a hyper-achieving big city cop is shuffled off to the seemingly bucolic dullness of a picturesque village in the English countryside as a consensus move by colleagues and superiors who are all tired of him making them look bad. Great fun, and the only really easy revisit for me on this list. I've lost track of how many times I've watched it on a whim. Come to think of it, aside from the very last film I'll have mentioned here today, it was the only box office success, taking in at least five times what it cost to make.

      One that I just recently watched over on Amazon Prime was Population 436 (2006, R,  92 min.), which was what put me in mind of this topic.
     Steve Kady (Jeremy Sisto), a Chicago-based census worker, is dispatched to the remote town of Rockwell Falls. He's there to do a detailed check when records show that every census has reported the town had exactly 436 people.

   Nearby locals won't even speak to him when he mentions where he's headed. An initial "not welcome" message does a hard 180 once they know he's duty-bound to visit, and his work will take more than a day.

  Word travels quickly, so everyone he meets already knows who he is, and the welcome wagon comes on strong. The creepiness is never far away, though, and it intensifies as Kady sees the signs of strain on some of the happy, happy masks. The town's secret has an iron-clad circular reasoning to it.

   There'll come a point where you'll either shut it off (though by that point you'll likely decide to see it through the final 15 minutes or so) or you'll give in to yelling at the screen like a mental patient for Steve to Just Leave Town!

     The fixed population aspect gives this film its own, unique mechanic, which helps keep it from feeling completely like a retread. That becomes key in the ending.
    Oh, and no, I haven't yet made the time to watch Midsommar (2019, R, 148 min.), though it obviously fits in this genre.

      ...and I'd say that's enough of that Old Time Religion for this week.
  Perhaps the most timely thing about these films is that their message is to not travel and meet new people.
    Enjoy your weekend!           - Mike