Aahana Swrup
In the fantasy horror film ‘Dark Harvest,’ the menacing Sawtooth Jack brings great terror to a small Midwestern town every year on Halloween Night when he rises from his grave and comes to life. Consequently, the town develops an annual traditional hunt, “The Run,” where teenage boys confront Sawtooth’s bloodthirst in an attempt to kill the being before it can cause immeasurable damage to the town. A year after Sawtooth meets his end at the hands of Jim Shepard, his younger brother, Richie, seeks to earn the same glory by defeating the Halloween monster himself.
Yet, once Richie comes face-to-cafe with the Halloween spirit, he realizes he may not be prepared for the truth behind the myth. Sawtooth Jack occupies a peculiar place within the narrative as an urban legend come to life that remains an integral part of the community’s history. As a result, this menacing movie monster must have caught the viewer’s attention, compelling them to wonder if Sawtooth Jack has any connections to reality.
Sawtooth Jack Is A Dark Harvest Original Legend
Despite Sawtooth Jack’s origin in the film as a town legend, the character has no real-life connections to a mythical creature. Instead, Sawtooth is entirely an original character penned by Norman Partridge in his 2006 novella, ‘Dark Harvest,’ which is the source material for David Slade’s film. Therefore, the film’s rendition of Sawtooth Jack remains confined to the author’s fictional narrative, with some expansion by screenwriter Michael Gilio.
Within the film’s narrative, Sawtooth Jack is a monster who surfaces every year on Halloween Night and makes a trip to the local town’s Church. The undead man breathes fire and possesses inhuman strength that allows him to cut down anyone standing in his path. According to legend, Sawtooth condemns the town to a grueling future if he reaches the Church before midnight. The last time the creature succeeded in his task in recent history, the community faced a dust cloud that annihilated their year’s harvest.
As a result, the community relies on young boys once they become of age to compete in a hunt, with a lucrative compensation awaiting the winner who kills Sawtooth Jack. Nevertheless, the boys must also pay a high price to compete in the mandatory hunt by remaining locked inside their rooms for three days without food. The ritual increases their hunger, motivating them to kill Sawtooth, a being whose insides are full of candy.
The myth presented within the film offers an intriguing premise that seems probable enough to be a real-life small-town ghost story. Given Sawtooth’s physical appearance— defined by the pumpkin on his head— one can easily spot a parallel between him and Jack-O-Lantern. Thus, on some level, Sawtooth feels like a spin on the Jack-O-Lantern, a real-life myth that emerges from the Irish folklore of Stingy Jack.
Stingy Jack, following a contentious relationship with the Devil, found himself roaming the Earth after death, rejected by both heaven and hell. The sole burning coal, entombed within a turnip, gifted to him by the Devil, became the boy’s only light source, condemning him to an eternity as a lost soul. Eventually, as Irish immigrants brought the tale to America, a pumpkin replaced Jack’s signature turnip, giving birth to the modern interpretation of pumpkin-headed Jack-O-Lantern.
Nonetheless, Sawtooth and Jack O-Lantern share little else in common other than their general physical appearance. Thus, while it’s highly possible that Author Partridge derived inspiration for Sawtooth’s physicality from the same, in order to incorporate classic Halloween imagery in his story— the character’s origins and storyline remain unique to the book. For the same reason, while Sawtooth Jack may remind viewers of the classic Jack-O-Lantern, there’s no tangible connection between the two.
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