A movie whose poster is literally nothing but a dead baby’s skull.
…
Holy hell. What the hell am I getting into.
Geez, couldn’t you at least have put a little sombrero on that thing to liven it up?
So… yeah, this is going to be a cheery one! Produced in 2011 by After Dark Films, Fertile Ground is- wait, holy fuck, this is the same company that produced Prowl! So I guess I can expect about an hour of pointless padding, followed by a half-way clever twist, and maybe a hobo for dessert?
Ahem!
The film opens with- a woman admiring her pregnant naked body in the mirror while lullabies play. Um. Okay, movie, but if you jump in to Maternal Instinct territory, I’m pumpin’ you full of so much cooking oil that the baby will come out crispy. Anyway, Little Miss Pregnant- er, I mean, Emily, is married in New York with her loving husband Nate, and they hold a wonderful dinner party with all of their friends and everything is happy and cheerful and you aren’t even going to make it to the second course before the miscarriage, huh. I mean, come on, cheerful opening in a horror movie? You might as well be spelling “tragic twist” with magic marker on the fucking lens.
But yeah, halfway through the dinner, she runs off to the bathroom and miscarriages, which is… kind of grotesque and disturbing, to be honest, so… props to the movie? Anyway, she’ll never be able to conceive again, because of the scarring, and because the plot needed it, and we cut to Emily and Nate starting over! I know this, because a giant fucking title card told me. What, did they figure the audience was too stupid to figure that part out when the next scene involves the duo shopping for a house out in the country?
So, anyway, next scene, the two are checking out an old house they want to buy out in the country, which comes complete with ironic dusty cradles and child swing-sets! “Ah, yes, this is where we keep all of our dead baby paraphernalia. Please stay out of the hall closet, that’s where we keep all of our ‘dying of cancer’ mementos.”
They decide to take the house anyway, and we cut to them moving in-
“MOVING IN.”
… Okay, seriously, is the movie just fucking with me now?
“So, should we start unpacking the boxes?” “What do you mean, ‘unpacking’? All I own are boxes.”
They start moving everything in, and they discover that… the house has an intercom system that leads to the shed? Um. Why? How? What? What?! No, seriously, what?! WHY?! HOW?! WHAT?!
[Editor’s Note: Do you plan on continuing the review?]
Nah, this is more fun.
Once the moving guys are done and all go away, Emily finds a child’s handprint on one of the windows, which she shrugs and cleans up. Which means we’re about… 15 minutes in and nothing scary has happened! Eh, I’m game, I’ve seen four Paranormal Activity movies and nothing’s happened in those either. Oh, but the handprint re-appears after she wipes it off, so I guess that’s supposed to count as our scare for the movie?
Emily takes some stuff down in to the basement, which it turns out is actually the basement from Cabin In The Woods, and can somebody please tell me why nobody in horror movies who buy a house actually check the basement? Seriously, that’s like buying a house 101, guys. And she finds a chest of memorabilia from the first people who owned the house, which is- geez, all I ever get in new houses are scratchy blankets and used condoms.
It turns out, the first people who owned the house are Nate’s relatives, and they find some pictures of the previous owners in the false bottom of the trunk. Including some good old fashioned Victorian porn! Ah, stiff photographs of naked people were the 1800’s equivalent to Slipshine.
FINDING A PICTURE FROM SLIPSHINE THAT I COULD ACTUALLY USE HERE WAS SO DIFFICULT I DON’T EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
So, after moving in, it’s time to start their new life-
“NEW LIFE.”
… I swear to god, Fertile Ground, I will fuck you up.
ANYWAY! So, Emily and Nate are moved in now! Oh, and then Emily brings home a tree! Hah hah, get it? It’s a “new tree”? “NEW LIFE”? Eh, eh?!
…
YOU’RE DEAD TO ME, MOVIE.
As they plant the tree, they realize that they never decided on a name for their baby, and settle on Ruth. Well, fan-fucking-tastic, now your ghost-baby is either going to try and stop a whining Christian author avatar and get killed by a truck, or they’re going to get utterly tanked on gasoline-quality hooch and bully some ex-cheerleader so she can help herself to the most epic of hatefucks.
[Editor’s Note: … WOW, your references are just getting more and more obscure, huh.]
I figure sooner or later, I’ll just make references so obscure that even I, the author, can’t understand them!
Ruth’s the one with the knife, which REALLY doesn’t bode well for your ghost baby.
A VERY STRANGE PLACE 
I must find where your references come from.