Tom Mattera and David Mazzoni’s film about dark things happening to a young boy and his older relatives living on a farm never really manages to spook its audience beyond its creation of an eerie atmosphere, but it does succeed tremendously on one front. Much like television’s comedy Raising Hope, The Fields reminds us exactly why Cloris Leachman has won an Oscar, numerous Emmy Awards, and many others: she gets lost in her characters so effortlessly that she can make everyone else in a production look like chumps. Along with child star Joshua Ormond, Leachman does her best to fill out the moody dramatic horror, and they do well enough to keep things interesting, but the plot retreads horror elements that have been overused as of late without adding anything new.

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