If you enjoy cornfields, farmers, and cheesy slasher movies, then Scarecrows definite is ripe for the picking, it’s the from director and writer Stuart Stone and assisted by writer Adam Rodness, both whom did The Haunted House on Kirby Road (2016). The box art and trailer, give away a lot of the story’s plot, it borrows a little from Children of the Corn (1984) people, namely trespassers serving as scarecrows, making a fast-paced 80-minute flick filled with slices and dices of other horror films, namely those of redneck horror and farming madness, that comes from Uncork’d Entertainment. Movies surround the concept of ‘scarecrows’ always interesting, no longer the childish fun of The Wizard of Oz (1939), now appear evil characters of doomed innocent souls to demons themselves, from Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) to Scarecrows (1988), a quick google search and one notices numerous horror and horror-comedy flicks that bear the title, therefore enjoy what you sow.
As typical with slashers, there are two ways they normally start either a previous victim seen running madly for their life, or a bunch of teenagers heading to some location, this flick includes a little of the first option and whole a lot of the second. The main group heads to a secretive lake for some romantic moments and teasing fun, just a problem of trying to locate the spot, it’s far off the beaten trail, and the trespassing likely to play part of this adventure. Those included in the group a few stereotypes clearly, Farbsie (Mike Taylor) as the clumsy athlete, his very sexual girlfriend Devon (Maaor Ziv), along with his best friend Ely (Umed Amin) and his girlfriend Ash (Hannah Gordon (Hurt [2018]) who Ely wants to give a promise ring to while he’s away at college, nice sentiment, but what are odds of that succeeding? It does take quite a while to get to the location, along with bellyaching, complaints, and someone drinking the entire water supply, it eats a majority of the runtime, all of it quite mundane. After some partying, a dreadful situation occurs forcing the teens to cross into the farmer’s (Jason J. Thomas) grounds, in a hapless manner with plenty of foreshadowing even for the most novice horror viewer, I won’t mention what happens, but the other characters just stand there watching the horror occur, nice friends. Fret not slasher fiends, the killing is coming soon, remember the scarecrows, and the artwork, well one by one they’re caught doing an impression of Strangeland (1998) mouths sewn shut, heavily drugged and mounted in burlap to crosses for protection of his crops. What for a sadistic and sexual conclusion to the film, filled with brutality (not quite), bloody (barely), violence shown in many cut away scenes. Lastly, the crow in the movie, given credit as Poe, cute, but it’s a Raven for him, not a crow.
A biggest problem with Scarecrows is the lack of interest, following the characters is not exciting, the audience needs someone to care about and to root for, whether that’s the victims or even the killer, however no one pulls at the heartstrings. The killer merely whistles, never truly speaking, his appearance something out of Wolf Creek (2005), but not imposing force. His victims nor the audience ever get an understanding of why the killings occur, his son mentions something but is never explored fully. This doesn’t mean it is a wretched movie, the cinematography works nicely, sound and lighting meet the required standards., while the most simplistic special effects occur on the screen, nothing too overwhelming. Also, one needs to note Meagan Pringle serves as the body double for Devon.
A teen horror movie, which is aimed for a throwback to the heyday of gore galore, but sadly it’s missing the bloody point of the slasher genre and lacks surprise, Even the basic slasher flick killer, needs a reason for killing, something for the audience to cling to, but it never completely comes clear, rather mounting a predictable storyline.
Tagline: It was supposed to be the summer of their dreams.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5283288/
IMDb Rating: 4.0/10
Baron’s Rating: 3.5/10