How About A Little Fire?

Title:  Scarecrow

Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away:  The music in this movie is done by “The Bulldog” and the scarecrow character is played by Todd Rex.  (Yeah, me neither)

Introduction:  eBay bids gone wrong.

Location:  This takes place in a small town with several locales.   A lot of time is spent in a cornfield, sure, but there are also houses, a trailer, a restaurant and a school.   Somebody pulled some strings to get this movie made.

Plot:  A high school aged kid- Lester- has problems fitting in and making friends, probably because his name is Lester.  At one point early on in the movie, Lester actually goes into a cornfield and wonders aloud to a scarecrow why life can’t be simple and like it is for the scarecrow.  Obviously, Lester never saw The Wizard of Oz.  So Lester kind of makes friends with this one girl, after another girl rejects him, and then he sees her kissing another guy.  In a fit of rage, he tells his mom’s boyfriend of the hour (who has a terrible mustache and wig) off, only to be chased down and then murdered by this redneck boyfriend of his mom’s.   Confusing?  The only thing confusing is why law is lawless in this town.  Lester’s “soul” (?) somehow ends up going into the scarecrow he dies underneath, and then the scarecrow comes to life and starts killing people, mainly avenging everyone who was mean to him.   The obvious plot holes are that no one questions it when the boyfriend says Lester kills himself (They didn’t question how he could have hung himself, dust for prints, nothing like that), yet when the scarecrow starts killing people there’s a full on investigation.   Also, it’s pretty obvious that the best way to stop a scarecrow is fire, duh.   In any event, we’ve all probably been through what this kid- Lester- has gone through (aside from his name), but how many of us turn into scarecrows and go kill the people who called us names in high school?  Why, if I murdered everyone who picked on me in high school, well… let’s not open that can of worms, shall we?  The point is, high school is stupid, yes, but you persevere through it and when it’s all said and done, you become a stronger person for it.  Turning into a scarecrow and killing kids after your possibly-soon-to-be stepfather accidentally murders you and makes it look like you killed yourself… it’s just not the answer.  Although I guess if the revenge didn’t involve killing, it wouldn’t be a horror movie, now would it?  It’d be The New Guy or Mean Girls.

Acting:  From the first real scene of dialogue, anyone can tell that they’re going to be in for a long movie of overacting.  When you portray a character that isn’t yourself, you should see that character as an extension of yourself.  That’s acting 101.  But nothing these actors say sounds even the least bit like it would come out of their mouth in real life.   I don’t blame the script (at least not entirely), but it’s more like the kids reading lines as if they’re reading lines.  None of the dialogue in this movie sounds natural because of the poor acting.  Does the movie suffer for it?  Not really, because you still want the characters to just die already, no matter how good the acting is.

Production:  It’s pretty close to what you would see in theaters, but not quite 100% there.

Sex/Nudity:  Some moments in the movie get close to it, but they never actually have any of these moments, a definite plus in wanting to see this movie come back for a sequel.

Special Effects:  One guy gets his head cut off and blood comes spurting out in the typical slasher way.  Most of the other effects are on par with that, though they don’t have that many as a lot of the killing scenes are shown only after the fact with cut screens. 

Overall Verdict:  I keep saying that we need new horror movie monsters that can reoccur, like Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, etc., and this scarecrow could be a decent franchise.  It’s kind of like how Jason Vorhees originated, and sure, he sounds like Randy Savage through a Burger King drive thru speaker, but hey, he’s a villain.  He’s kind of just in what he does, but it’s still murder and a bit too far, kind of one of those conflicted anti-heroes.   Suppose another high school kid down the line is being bullied and Lester the Scarecrow helps him out by murdering his tormentors, only to learn a possibly valuable lesson in the end.   This sequel writes itself.