Scarecrows

                                                                 Reviewed By Sean Patrick Dolan

Year:  1988
Director:  William Wesley
Cast:  Ted Vernon, Michael Simms, Richard Vidian, B.J. Turner, Kristina Sanborn, Victoria Christian

A group of five heavily armed robbers have successfully pulled off a daring raid on a marine base, nabbing 3.5 million in cash before hijacking a small twin engine plane and its pilots, a father and daughter.  With the military in hot pursuit, one of the team, Bert (B.J. Turner) decides to cheat the others.  He creates a diversion, bails out with the money into a cornfield, and leaves behind a live grenade, intending to blow the plane out of the sky.  He fails, and he is on the ground only minutes before his extremely pissed off comrades bail out too and come looking for him.

Bert and his pursuers find themselves in dark and desolate fields, surrounded by scarecrows of a decidedly unwholesome appearance mounted on wooden crosses.  They also find an abandoned farmhouse with evil vibes and a picture on the wall of the previous residents, the Fowlers,  three rough looking men.  Bert is the first to discover just how deep they have gotten themselves into trouble.  While searching for the money, he is tricked by the scarecrows, who like to imitate voices and play mind games, and is slaughtered.  Despite this, he walks back to the house where his "friends" are waiting.  They lay into him heavy, but something is wrong with him- he won't talk and just takes the beating- at least at first.  Then he reveals his new demonic nature, and superhuman strength, tossing his opponents around like rag dolls.  He is impervious to gunfire, but is finally dispatched when Corbin (Ted Vernon) chops off his head and limbs.  To their horror, they discover that Bert had been gutted and filled with straw and the blood money. 

Rather then accept the obvious, Roxanne and the others are convinced that there is someone out in the cornfields who is trying to scare them away so that they can take the money.  They go out to retrieve the cash and find it scattered all over the trees and ground.  Jack is the next member picked off, and Curry (Michael Simms) nearly dies too while discovering that guns are worthless in this battle.  The crew return to the house to regroup.  Curry, who up to this point had been their leader, suffers a mental breakdown and becomes paranoid and delusional.  He thinks Jack (Richard Vidan), whom he saw slaughtered himself, is coming back to the house with the money.  He refuses to leave without him.  He kicks the others out, and they decide to head for the plane and make their escape, discretion being the better part of valor.  Greed gets the better of Roxanne (Kristina Sanborn), and she dies trying to retrieve more money.  Meanwhile Curry is still at the farmhouse, and he does indeed reunite with Jack.  Corbin and Kellie (Victoria Christian), after fighting the undead scarecrows, make it to the plane, but they aren't out of the woods yet- like many great B-flicks, this one has a nasty twist ending.          

William Wesley is credited with directing only one other film, the mediocre-at-best Route 666 (2001).  I wonder what went wrong in this man's career, because Scarecrows is a film loaded with action, atmosphere and a tight plot, and moreover, embraces the most universal and beloved elements of the B-movie/slasher.  Like most, this movie takes place at night in the dark woods, and we all know that bad things happen in rural areas in horror films.  The ambiance here is equal to Children of the Corn, Friday the 13th, Evil Dead, or any other eighties film with a similar location.  I particularly enjoyed the truck that ran without an engine, which was sitting outside the farmhouse the whole time, and other nice touches- the lights go out in the farmhouse and the windmills cease to spin after all the robbers are all dead.  The cast of characters is also familiar- Curry is the alpha male, the leader, followed by Roxanne, the dominant female.  The cast is rounded out by Corbin, "the professional", Jack, the big dumb moose (his annoying laments over his lost harmonica meant to provide comic relief), and Kellie, "the innocent", and ultimately, the survivor.  The theme of crime and punishment is also present, articulated by Curry during his mental breakdown- Why did we escape so easily? Or did we? Did we die at the hands of the military police, and is this real at all? It is reinforced by Kellie emerging as the lone survivor. 

This is not meant to state that this film lacked originality, or that it should be lumped together with all the other b-movie/slashers of its era.  The scarecrows, which seem entirely too "fleshy" and heavy to be mere straw creatures are a welcome respite from the glut of more traditional zombies in films of the eighties, although they fill the same function. There is not an overabundance of gore in this film, but the handful of scenes which are violent and bloody are notable- especially the scenes in which the scarecrows gut and stuff their victims, increasing their ranks.  Norman Cabrera,  credited with the special effects in this film, did a remarkable job both in the gore department and in the makeup of the scarecrows- I have seen many otherwise great films marred by lack of attention in these details.  As a side note, I think Cabrera went a little too far in the appearance of the "resurrected" Jack, who looked a hell of a lot like a Cenobite to me (Hellraiser came out the previous year, 1987, the sequel Hellbound in 1988).  Terry Plumeri provided a great musical score, but it was largely abandoned in the second half of the film  The radio broadcasts at the beginning and end of the film are obviously reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead and other films, but I didn't find them derivative, just a useful plot device.  I call this a B-movie merely because it is not widely popular and enjoyed little critical acclaim.  This movie was well acted and the cinematography and special effects belie a respectable budget.  I reviewed the unrated 1988 Manson International/Forum Home Video VHS release- the box boasts a great tagline- "Trespassers Will Be Violated".  I have not seen any other versions, and to the best of my knowledge there is no DVD release of this film available, only an out of print Laserdisc.  I give this film 4 Bitch Slaps, and highly recommend it.

4 Bitch Slaps

 

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