SCARECROW (2013)

Studio:       Syfy
Director:    Sheldon Wilson
Writer:       Rick Suvalle, Sheldon Wilson
Producer:  Jamie Goehring
Stars:     Lacey Chabert, Robin Dunne, Nicole Munoz, Brittney Wilson, Carlo Marks

Review Score:

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Summary:

A group of teenagers unwittingly unleashes a 100-year-old family curse in the form of a bloodthirsty killer scarecrow.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Teenagers Chad and Marcy fall through the floor of a barn on the abandoned Miller farm. The blood from Marcie’s leg wound resurrects a creature that kills the couple.

Teacher Aaron Harris drives a school bus for his students serving detention. With him are troublemakers Tyler and Nicki, socially awkward Calvin, new girl Beth, likable jock Daevon, and good girl Maria. Their assignment is to dismantle the Miller farm’s scarecrow and reassemble it in town for the 100th Annual Scarecrow Festival.

His ex-girlfriend Kristen Miller, recently returned to town, unexpectedly meets Aaron at her family’s farm. Her other ex-boyfriend Eddie also arrives, creating mildly awkward tension.

Nicki and Tyler go off on their own. The others are soon attacked in the cornfield. Everyone scrambles and regroups inside the farmhouse. The creature throws a body through one of the windows, showing that Nicki and Tyler are dead. Calvin is killed when he makes a run for Eddie’s truck. Daevon is killed inside the house. An explosion draws Officer Morris to the property, but he is promptly dispatched by the creature.

Eddie, Aaron, Kristen, Beth, and Maria make it to the police vehicle and escape. The scarecrow appears suddenly in the middle of the road. Eddie hits it, but totals the car and fatally injures himself in the process. While the others retreat to a nearby farmhouse, Eddie intentionally blows himself up along with the vehicle to try and kill the creature.

Old Man Murphy confronts the foursome when they break into his house for sanctuary. Murphy is killed while searching for the monster on his property. Beth points out that the scarecrow appears to be after Kristen, as it is somehow connected to the blood of the Miller family.

Beth plans to give Kristen to the beast after taking her hostage at knifepoint. Instead, the creature takes Beth and pulls her into a thresher in Murphy’s barn.

The remaining trio flees into the woods and survives until sunrise. The scarecrow reappears and kills Maria. Kristen and Aaron make it to a boat graveyard, but Aaron dies protecting Kristen from the creature. Kristen uses an axe to set a fire and trap the scarecrow below deck on a derelict ship. Kristen escapes as the boat explodes, presumably killing the monster.

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Review:

Killer scarecrow movies should come around with a frequency no greater than one-tenth that of Halley’s Comet.  Once every 7.5 years or so sounds about right.  The world of quick and dirty horror movie productions sees things differently, however.  Killer scarecrow movies instead pop up at the rate Arby’s franchises multiply in new mini-mall developments.  And killer scarecrows are to horror movies what Arby’s is to cuisine.  We know better than to indulge in something we will regret later, but we just cannot help ourselves and do it anyway.

Not one to sit idly by and let “Husk,” “Dark Night of the Scarecrow,” three “Dark Harvest” films, and umpteen other cornfield massacre movies thump their sticks against this dead horse of a sub-genre, SyFy pulls out its own bat and joins the party.  Unless the plainly titled “Scarecrow” is someone’s first outing with a SyFy Channel creature feature, experience has taught the target audience what to expect (cheesy effects, PG-13 gore), as well as what not to (original plot, acting worth writing home about).

Big city girl Kristen Miller has returned to her Podunk hometown in hopes of reuniting with an old flame, high school teacher Aaron.  Complicating things is the appearance of Eddie, another ex-boyfriend whose presence wets the wick of rekindling.

Aaron is busy supervising a Breakfast Club busload of detention-serving teens conveniently including a troublesome couple, awkward outcast, snotty new gal, jock, and virginal good girl.  Maria has a quiet crush on Daevon.  Calvin likes Beth, but keeps it a secret.  Tyler and Nicki cannot keep their hands and lips off each other.  As with the adult love triangle, all of these romantic interludes are taken out back and shot in the first act.  Half-hearted subplots are proven to be mere time killers when “Scarecrow” turns a corner into pure slasher mayhem.

Centennial celebrations are always ominous anniversaries in horror.  The locals here are preparing for their 100th Annual Scarecrow Festival and it is up to the teenagers and their teacher to disassemble the Miller family farm’s scarecrow so it can be used in the festivities.  Weirdly, this particular scarecrow is not the menacing creature causing the carnage.  The movie’s killer creature is not a Ray Bolger-type in a patchwork pointed hat, but rather a serpentine CGI generation made from tendril-like animated tree branches.  There is an inanimate spooky scarecrow on a post, but it exists at the same time as the computerized beastie, so it is not completely clear if they are meant to be the same entity.

Character development abandoned, “Scarecrow” is unburdened from following a plot to focus on tame televised terror featuring running through cornfields, offscreen deaths, and repeated use of the same “dun!” sound effect every time someone comes from behind to inadvertently startle another person.  Blood reanimates a dormant creature, cell phones cannot find a signal, vehicles encounter untimely breakdowns, and everyone wears nearly identical and neatly arranged scratch wounds on their faces during ninety minutes of been there done that.

Along with what it puts on the screen, which is not much, “Scarecrow” calls attention to itself with what it does not show.  This is the sort of low-budget production that tells its audience how much money it did not have by staging a pivotal car wreck with a cut to black before it hits a tree and by having characters make it to a 100-yard distance before setting off an explosion.

Complaining too much about “Scarecrow” being the movie that it is would be like visiting the aforementioned Arby’s and expressing disappointment in the sandwich.  It is intended to be disposable sustenance, not a gourmet experience.  Yet even with Lacey Chabert as the seasoned curly fries adding flavor to distract from a mediocre main meal, “Scarecrow” is average at best in the growing pantheon of milquetoast monster movies from SyFy.

Review Score:  45

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