BobforTrish Director, co-writer and even cast member, Adam Gierasch brings us the tale of Emily Weaver, a city girl who, after her miscarriage is whisked by her husband to his family home in rural Iowa.The country idyll and her own recovery begin to pale as she discovers the grizzly past of former occupants whose malevolent spirits haunt the house. Discovering that she is pregnant again, she realises that she may face the same fate as previous expectant mothers who were killed by their partners......at least, that's what we are led to believe. The truth turns out to be much more prosaic and is, unfortunately, one of a number of downfalls which help to make this attempt so disappointing. Seen through the eyes of our heroine, she sees her artist husband's agent Risa attempting a romantic intrigue with him, her best friend Brittany conspiring with him and the man himself falling into madness whilst plotting her demise.We are of course given enough clues - depression, stopping medication, hints of paranoia - to work out the truth and to guess the ending which takes an overlong time to appear on the horizon.Whilst there are a few scary and gory moments, there is not enough here even to pad out an hour and a half which means it feels like two hours or more until we reach a quite expected denouement. Stephan Sechi's soundtrack does little to enhance particularly as it is frequently played at a level which drowns out dialogue - although this could be claimed to improve things slightly as the characters seem to have to carefully explain everything to each other in case we miss anything. Shot on location, the starkness of the Iowan landscape, although hinted at, is largely wasted.Leisha Hailey does fairly well as Emily Weaver despite - or perhaps because of - depending on one's point of view - the almost obsessive images of her cleavage and breasts. Less convincing in their roles are Gale Harold as her husband Nate, Stephanie Brown as Risa and JoNell Kennedy as Brittany.Whilst IMDb does not give a budget for this film, this would seem to be the biggest stumbling block. The camera work, location shooting and general air of cleverness seem to indicate an attempt to produce a serious horror movie. Perhaps the makers would have been better off with a smaller budget and a chance to ham it up a little...One footnote: The chapter headings were both pointless and annoying.

moruten13 To write a review about this film is hard, when you don't want to sound like you hated it, when you thought it was okay... It is not scary, so horror or thriller is overreacting, but if your girlfriend can't take much gore or is easily scared, this film might be the perfect one, before you start with something like the ring or saw.The story has potential, it is a common horror story plot line, with a couple moving to the countryside, but with a bit more background than most of those plot lines. Here I at first got some hope, that it won't be as boring as most films with these plot lines are... But... Yeah, as mentioned, disappointed viewer.When Emily starts to see things, you kinda get a bit creeped and wonder what is the reason, but it soon is boring. Nothing happens, besides her seeing ghost, who do nothing but being their. Even the breathing sound in paranormal activity is scarier than this, after it happened twice. Wasted potential A.Since she found this kinda box, the story gets interesting about the people who lived there before and later on, they find a skeleton in their yard.Nate turns kinda like Jack Nicholson in the Shining and you have this unseen, only mentioned panting on which he is working and you get hinted to many times. But later on, when it's revealed you get, yet again, disappointed... Wasted potential B.Emily gets pregnant again and stops taking her pills, now *hit is getting serious... You at least hope so. But, no, the ghost still appear, do nothing and then are gone. Nate works on his painting and behaves still weird.The way in which the story is told, won't help to let you fell like it's needlessly stretched. It's repetitive and leaves a feeling of "buying time" so the film won't end after 30mins (which would have improved it to at least 6.5 starts in my opinion...).At their housewarming party Emily gets again one of those "psychomoments" and the first really mysterious thing happens. A friends dies, which is something you think would have a deeper impact on the story but isn't mentioned to much. When you recycle those boring ghost presence, make it so you think at least they'll do something. Wasted potential C.Now, finally, the end is in sight. But again, you get not a good, tight packed end which is thrilling or scary. You get the long, boring, every-move is predictable ending, which is a classical horror film ending. In the ending I see wasted potential D.The final scenes of the film are not needed if you didn't fall asleep during the final, but just in case you did, it will kinda explain it to you.Making a good horror film is hard, yes. Especially with ghost, since the genre is overloaded. But when you got such a good idea, decent actors and wasted potential don't make a film needlessly longer so you can get it to be a long-running film. This film would have been a real gem as short film, it saddens to see, how it was stretched and many things clearly made to make it easy to understand, which kind of lead to a really "see-through" storyline. In the end a film you can see with someone who is easy scared and can't take to much gore. When you see it as a couple maybe a bit more scaring than as single.

aesgaard41 "Fertile Ground" is basically the Frankenstein of haunted house movies. Basically everything in the script has been borrowed or taken from other much better ghost movies. You have the wife who is suffering loss in the form of her stillborn child, the husband who brings her out to the middle of no where "for her health" far from an unidentified rural town, she's left alone a lot for pretty much to let her imagination to run wild and for the ghosts to scare her, and as usual, the husband never believes her stories. After all, this is "his" family home. Add to all of these plot points are the rumors that he might be having an affair. However, there are some rather chilling scenes and uncovered evidence of a recurring series of murders which occur, and as predicted, all of this does occur during the date of the cycle. There are some very chilling scenes, several legitimate scares and the actors pull off fine performances, but the drawback is that the movie ends very unsatisfactory. Maybe that's the point – to create a scary ghost movie that doesn't end on a happy note or a now-what-happens scene. "Fertile Ground" might be heavily formulaic, but the direction and climax are worth the watch.

jamesm1068 I must say that Gale Harold gives a really good and interesting performance in this, the other actors are OK, far better then what usually turns up in typical horror films. One thing I really liked was there are no stupid teenagers or slashers in here, too many horror films feel they need that to sell the viewer but not here. There is a few slow moments in the movie but overall it was really entertaining! It is more of a supernatural horror film, not too much blood and guts like most turn out to be, this one has it's scary moments without that and without being stupid or boring. It may remind you of a 70's style film, it has a twist with no CGI or crappy effects to get in the way of the storyline. I would recommend this to any horror fan who likes supernatural/ghost movies.