After experiencing a traumatic miscarriage, Emily and Nate Weaver abandon their inner city abode for a quieter life out in the country. Taking up residence in Nate's ancestral home, Emily starts to have strange visions of people prowling through the hallways. When Nate's behaviour starts to take on a bizarre and sinister twist, Emily fears she may be the next victim in the long line of murders plagued by the house.

This is the third After Dark Movie released this year. Since Prowl and Husk were both great additions, my expectations of Fertile Ground were quite high. Sadly it seems things have taken a downwards turn on this flick.

The fundamental issue with Fertile Ground is that it's just not that exciting. Sure, there's lots of mystery and yes it can be quite gripping at times but the storyline gets very lightweight and by the end you really feel this movie could've been better than what it was.

It's not all bad news though. The acting quality is above average for an After Dark b-movie. The two main actors Leisha Hailey and Gale Harold are both superb in their respective parts of Emily and Nate. The confusion, angst, distrust all come through convincingly and it definitely helps to gel the movie a lot better than it otherwise would have. Kudos on this front.

Sadly gore and frights are on the lightweight side of things. There really isn't any significant amount of gore at all, so gorehounds beware. Furthermore, whilst there're parts of the movie that are mildly creepy, there are'nt many scares to be had. It's just not that frightening. Needless to say that's not a great thing for a horror movie.

There was also this peculiar issue we had with the blu-ray audio, in that the dialogue and music levels are way out. In order for us to hear the dialogue we had to increase the volume levels which in turn makes the music louder and... Well, that got annoying after a while. Let this be a note to all blu-ray/DVD audio technicians: always have the dialogue louder than the music.

Anyways, with that said Fertile Ground isn't really a bad movie it's just not that great and whilst i can't honestly recommend this one on a blind buy basis, if the movie for whatever reason piques your interest then probably best to watch this on TV or even at a stretch on rental.

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