Last night, we watched Field of Dreams. Going into this thing, I kinda knew the premise. It wasn’t a total surprise. But still, what the fuck? Why wasn’t this a horror movie? Is this a horror movie? Let’s take a look at it together:
First thing that happens. Guy catches us up on his family history. His mom died when he was a baby. Dad raised him. Baseball is an important thing in their lives. Then the 60s happened or something and Guy went to college...Cool, I get it. Now Guy is a grown man and he’s a farmer who is hanging out in his cornfield. Just walking around alone at night. As one does when they’re a farmer (I assume) He hears a whispery, devil voice that says “If you build it, he will come” Guy looks around. Obviously, no one is there because it’s Iowa and there are only about ten people in the whole state. The rest is corn (I assume). Guy’s wife is sitting on the porch, supervising the night time cornwalking. He shouts at her and asks if she heard a devil-voice issuing commands. She smiles and says. “Nah. No devil-voice in my head!” Naturally, he is comforted and keeps walking. THEN THE DEVIL-VOICE SAYS THE THING AGAIN! Guy turns around and sees zero humans. Then! He hallucinates and sees a baseball field on his property and the desolation of his family’s livelihood. All of the corn is gone and replaced with grass and dirt and chalk drawings. Zero corn! He knows then that he will have to destroy his family to appease the whispery old devil-voice and pave the way for Him to come. At this point, I am assuming He is the Antichrist or Satan or Cthulhu. We’ll see.
Naturally, Guy and his wife need to talk this over. They have two very brief discussions about destroying a large chunk of the crop while using their savings to construct a useless ballfield. (Also, I did some research on this and found that there are not enough human people in Iowa to construct even the most basic baseball team.) After thinking on it for fifteen minutes or so, his wife sees the merit in heeding the whispery devil-voice and she concedes. Cue the montage of this devil-listener destroying the corn, which is tall enough to be producing a crop in the near future. It looks like the middle of summer. Why the urgency, Guy?! Devil-voice? Why?
Then, that dick, the devil-voice is gone for months. Poor Guy has to watch his empty fucking field all winter and ponder the futility of his own existence. Crushing. But then, wonder of wonders! Spring comes and Guy finds a stranger in an antique baseball costume trespassing on his ballfield. Guy isn’t burdened with an overabundance of common sense or suspicion. He goes up to this weird man and finds out that he is the spirit of a long-dead baseball player. Awesome! Let’s play ball now! When Guy’s wife and kid come out to find their patriarch in the throes of a paranormal game of catch, they’re stoked! They invite ghostman inside for a tasty meal of potato chips or dust or whatever ghosts and poor people eat. But, when the ghostman tries to leave the field, he finds out that he can’t pass the barrier from the field to the rest of the farm. At least there’s that, right? It’s at this point that I realize Ghost Aquarium would be a much better title for this film. All of a sudden, more dead ballplayers show up and they start to play together. Shit hasn’t hit the fan yet, but I know it’s coming.
Brother-in-law is there the next day, trying to talk Guy into selling him the farm so his family doesn’t starve to death. But Guy is a total boss and he’s like, “Nah, bro. I got this ghostball thing going on. I think we’ve got our shit covered.” and Bro-In-law is like, “I don’t see any goddamn ghosts, Kevin.” At this point, the viewer realizes that the family is experiencing a shared delusion/hallucination/possession. Even the child. Especially the child.
Is Guy going to go off the deep end and start stabbing people soon? Surely yes.
Then Guy and Wife are heading out to a PTA meeting where the righteous citizens in the community discuss whether they should burn a book that’s offensive. Wife is the champion of all things offensive, so she takes up the cause for the book and says “No way! Bad books are good!” and the rest of the town counters with, “Your husband is obviously a witch. We will burn him instead and call it even.” The couple high-tails it outta there and then Guy hears the whispery devil-voice say “Ease his pain”
Guy somehow deduces that the voice is referring to the author of the book that the townspeople want to burn. The audience is shown a research montage as we learn that the best way to ease a reclusive author’s pain is to take him to a ballgame and buy him a hot dog. A shared dream between Guy and Wife confirms the assumption. Now Guy is going to piss away the rest of the family savings by going to Boston to kidnap a stranger and make him watch baseball. Perfect. Yes.
Guy finds where the author lives and asks him to go to a game with him. Author is like, “The fuck I am! Who are you?” so then Guy tries to scare Author into going with him. Author is pissed because he’s a sensible man who doesn’t like being kidnapped. But then Guy uses some sort of evil animal magnetism to lure the man to the ballfield nonetheless. True to his dream, he purchases a hot dog and beer for the sad stranger. The whispery devil-voice is so pleased that it grants Guy a vision and a command to “go the distance”. The vision gives him the name of a man named Moonlight who is to be his next victim. The poor Author admits that he also saw the instructions and would help Guy in his efforts to serve the devil-voice.
The two new friends go to some other place where they find out their victim is already dead. Bummer! Can a man be double-killed? Let’s find out! The devil-voice is so pleased with Guy’s work that he bends the rules of space and time to allow him to travel into the past to talk to the living victim! Praise the devil-voice! They talk, but before Guy can make his move, something happens and he’s back in present time (I think I fell asleep for part of that).
Sad that they were not allowed to double-kill the man named Moonlight, they two pals decide that they need to go check in on the ghost aquarium. On the drive back, Guy confides in Author that he blames his book for the hatred he still bears for his long-dead father. Heavy! Deep! Surely, this is the point when the man goes berserk and kills the man responsible for Guy’s eternal paternal rift! Just as Guy reaches for a cudgel to brain Author, he spies a tender young hitchhiker.
When the sweet young man gets in the car and tells the two pals that his name is Moonlight, they realize devil-voice has granted them another boon. They have captured the young soul of the long-dead man from before! Praise devil-voice! Praise him!
They rush back to the ballfield and huck the young man’s spirit at the ballplayers, instructing him to play baseball forever! The little man is speechless with dread, but he complies. Another fish for the ghost aquarium. Praise you, devil-voice! Things really start to heat up now. The next day, Brother-in-law comes sniffing around the cornfield again and now he has two angry crones with him. They all try to talk sense into Guy and make him consider his family. He won’t listen, of course. Brother-in-law gets really pissed this time and throws Guy’s daughter onto the ground from the top of the bleachers. The old ghostman named Moonlight comes around….from somewhere. The past? The corn?.....Isn’t he a young ghost now, doomed to play baseball? I think I fell asleep for a little while because I don’t know what he was doing there. Anyway, he lends a hand and revives the girl.
Devil-voice is so pleased with Brother-in-law’s violence that he grants him sight of the ghost aquarium. More praise! More baseball! Still, no food or money for the family. Ah, well. you can’t have everything.
So, the dead ballmen take a liking to the Author and later that night, they beckon him into the corn. The filmmaker makes it clear (at least to me) that to go into the corn is death. The Author has become a devoted follower of devil-voice and yearns to follow the destiny arrayed before him. At this point, Guy loses his shit. He’s so mad that he isn’t invited to die in the corn too. Devil-voice is being a total dick right now! He practically screams at the camera. But Author sees the true picture of devil-voice’s master plan. He foretells a horde of gullible tourists. They are due to visit the ghost aquarium brimming with money and blood and innocence! Guy will get the opportunity to slake his blood-lust and feed his family for generations. The devil-voice is good. Trust in the devil-voice. The real cherry on top comes when Guy’s dead dad shows up right before the horde of innocents. Guydad is totally young and doesn’t have a clue as to why he’s been hucked into sports purgatory! Guy decides that now is the best time to throw balls at him. Finally, after all these years he can throw things at his dead dad!
Guy’s family watches in smug satisfaction as Guy relentlessly pelts baseballs at his helpless ghost captive. The camera pans out as darkness falls over the town and the prophesized horde slouches to the ballfield. Praise be to devil-voice. He has come!
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