The Field is your standard supernatural, mystery, thriller. Strange things are going on, and the story slowly reveals the answers. We also have our troubled protagonist couple to ground the story. Ben was a celebrated Chicago chef, and he’s left everything to save his marriage and hopefully start a family. While there’s really nothing inherently flawed with the story, there’s nothing exceptional about it. If you’re like me, you may figure out the mystery about halfway through. The acting overall is fine. But fine is not always good, the dialog could have used a much-needed boost to elevate its quality.
“Every shot is beautifully composed, and the lighting and color are brilliant.”
What I absolutely love about The Field is the cinematography. Along with writing and directing, Tate Bunker is the cinematographer, and this movie is gorgeous to watch. Take a hundred random stills from the film, bind them together, and you have an exquisite coffee table book. Every shot is beautifully composed, and the lighting and color are brilliant. As a thriller though, most of the thrilling moments are shot in daylight, so it loses the enhanced creep factor you get at night.
I also loved the film’s soundtrack. It exhibits an effective pounding instrumental in building up the mystery and a unique choice of music during the opening credits. My guess though the music comes from a music bed service, if it’s original, Bunker has some fantastic movie-making resources at this disposal.
The main reason to see The Field is that it’s so damn gorgeous to watch. Bunker understands composition and how to capture an image beautifully. I don’t condone stealing, but if you’re in indie filmmaker, watch The Field, study it, and copy all of Bunker’s techniques.
"…it's so damn gorgeous to watch"
I think we we must have seen different movies because nicely composed scenery in no way saves this movie or makes it worthy of 7 out of 10 stars, I know I’m harsh but crap is crap and I’ve seen enough good and bad cinema to know the difference, this movie isn’t worth the time wasted watching it.
In contrast I liked the fact that most of the shots were during the day. It wasnt about being spooky or creepy but seemed a bit more realistic as these kids of storms definately happiness in the mid west during the day and ghosts dont just show up at night. Yes beautiful cinematography and the effects were great.
The music is clearly an original composition. Per the credits, it is credited to Peter Batchelder.
Hi Alan,
I was just reading your review of The Field, and I thought you might like to know that I am Peter Batchelder, the guy in the credits who wrote all the original music for the film… so, I’m not a music bed service, but in fact, a real person. I’m very glad you enjoyed the original music that I wrote for the film.