During a storm in Tennessee, a meteorite lands a farm all H.P. Lovecraft style. Soon, a teenager is in the middle of a plague that destroys crops, animals and even his family.

Directed by David Keith, who acted in An Officer and a Gentleman and Firestarter amongst others, this late 80’s film was released theatrically in the U.S. as The Farm and then came back out on video as The Curse.

Zack (Wil Wheaton, Star Trek: The Next Generation) lives on a farm with his younger sister Alice (Will’s real-life sister Amy), their mother Frances, stern stepfather Nathan (Claude Akins, Sheriff Lobo and Murder, She Wrote) and their bullying stepbrother Cyrus (Malcolm Danare, Flashdance, Christine).

One night, Frances sneaks out to have sex with one of the farmhands. As luck would have it, a meteor lands in the field, starts to glow and begins to leak into the soil. A local scientist wants to tell the authorities, but just like Jaws, local businessmen put a stop to that. After all, the TVA is building a new reservoir in town!

The farm goes to hell. The water grows cloudy and gross tasting. Food grows way too big and is way too inedible. And the livestock have become violent. Meanwhile, Frances goes insane and begins to grow boils and attack her family. Nathan believes that all of this is God’s curse because his wife cheated on him. Zack and Alice stay away from the infection by drinking clean water from anywhere but the house.

Willis, a TVA surveyor played by John Schneider from TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard, comes to the house to get a drink when he is attacked by Frances. Meanwhile, feral dogs on the property start to kill people.

The Curse consumes everyone — Zack’s mother turns into a gooey liquid mess, Nathan and Cyrus become zombies who are nearly unkillable and the house sinks into the ground. If you’re wondering how this movie got so gory so quickly, guess who was the producer and gore consultant? Lucio Fulci!

Willis gets The Curse too, slowly dying in a hospital bed while the virus mutates further outside. There’s no happy ending, even if the kids survive.

There are two sequels to this film and in true Italian tradition, none of them have anything to do with this one.

It’s not great. But the parts that you can recognize as Fulci are.

You can grab this from Scream Factory. You get the second one, too!