Director – Emmanuel Itier (The Midnight Hour)
Starring – Tim Young (Camp Blood), Tiffany Shepis (Psycho Street), and Todd Rex (Scarecrow Slayer)
Release Date – 2002
Tagline – “You’ve never been STALKED like this before”
A decade ago I was still in high school. During this time my venture in to horror was in full swing. Most of my shirts were purchased from rottencotton.com and fright-rags.com, my DVD and VHS collection took up a majority of my room, I was reading an insane amount of horror novels and comics, and The Misfits could be heard 10 minutes before you finally saw me. I was probably being monitored by the police for suspicious behavior for everything I had googled. It was during this time I came across a little film called Scarecrow while flipping through the channels.
From what I remember the movie was on Sy-Fy (back when it was Sci-Fi). I watched it with my Dad and we both liked it, surprisingly. As the years went by I forgot about this film until one day during the summer. I often order a large amount of movies from Amazon.com and while preparing an order Amazon recommended The Midnight Horror Collection: Deadly Harvest DVD. The artwork was too small to make out so I clicked it to see what was included in this multi-film set. I was surprised to find that it was Scarecrow and two sequels that I had no idea existed. The DVD was under $10 so I grabbed it. It has been sitting on my shelf since that day, and after some debate, I decided to throw it in.
**Spoiler Alert**The film follows Lester (Young), the oldest looking high schooler to ever cross your television screen. Lester is the shy, artsy kinda kid that is often the butt of other high school student’s jokes. Even the faculty at the school ridicule poor ‘ol Lester. Lester’s home life is no different. His mother is the town bicycle (google the joke if you have yet to hear it) and is often bringing home random Johns. Lester has his eye on the only girl to ever show him any kindness, Judy (Shepis). However, Lester spots Judy kissing one of the guys that is often tormenting him and is heartbroken.
That night he goes home and catches his mother being rode hard by another random man. The man tells Lester to leave but he refuses. The man, wanting to teach Lester a lesson, chases him through the cornfields behind his trailer. Lester falls to the ground and the man climbs on top of him. As Lester struggles to get free, the man strangles him. The man realizes he had went too far and covers his tracks by making it look as if Lester had hung himself. A few months have passed since Lester’s death and everyone has went on with their lives, that is until evildoers begin turning up murdered by a scarecrow that is light on his feet. The scarecrow is, as you guessed, Lester and he is exacting revenge on those that have made his life a living hell, that is until Judy intervenes. **Spoiler Alert**
This has to be the worst movie I have ever seen and for some sick reason I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. The acting is horrible by most of the cast. Tiffany Shepis, however, did a great job in her role like she does in most of the films I have seen her in. With bad acting a bad story is also involved and this film is no exception. The story is predictable and not very well written. The funny thing about reviews is that they are representations of the writer and what they took away from the film.
What I took away from this film is that the production team was trying to create a slasher film reminiscent of those from the golden age and failed horribly. With most slashers the deaths start at the beginning of the film and continue till the end. The viewers are not treated to any deaths until the later half of this film and when watching a horror flick this could result in the viewer being bored. Enough with the story and on to other aspects of the film. The kills are mostly off camera so we do not get to see any special effects except for the scarecrow’s costume. The scarecrow actually looks really good, and the obvious reason to watch this film. If this film was done properly the scarecrow could easily be my favorite horror icon. He can spit out one liners that can make Freddy Krueger envious and has some sweet acrobatic skills. Overall, this is a very bad movie that still entertains and can be placed in the “so bad its good” category. Give it a watch but beware.
