Scarecrow

Scarecrow

The DVD cover promises so much, the scarecrow actually looks a decent villain and he's wielding a dangerous looking gardening implement. The director worked as consultant producer on the Brian Yuzna (Bride of Re-Animator) directed and Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) penned The Dentist which was fun enough and the budget was a more than reasonable $2million. So I'm guessing that the cover art cost all of $1, 800, 000.00 because you would never believe the budget from the actual production values.

Lester, a high school kid played by 30-something-year-old actor Tim Young is a troubled soul. Girls hate him, boys bully him, his teacher thinks he's 'white trash', his mum's a whore and he lives in a trailer park. He's got it bad but at least Judie (Tiffany Shepis of Troma fame) is kind to him. But then he sees her kiss one of his tormenters and goes over the top busting in on his mum while she's being shagged over the kitchen table and the not so happy fella chases Lester out to the cornfield where he kills him then makes it look like suicide. Lester's soul passes into the scarecrow and then he seeks his revenge on his tormentors and well anyone, in fact people are introduced just to be killed off. After some dodgy then dodgier make-up fx he goes after Judie (cheating whore!) so she burns him alive, not surprising really after he's killed her dad.

So where do we start? With the absolutely crap acting (with exception to Shepis who makes the most of a crap script), maybe the crap script which has the bullies inexplicably call Lester scarecrow and the teacher who constantly calls him white trash in the middle of class. Perhaps the constant re-use of footage just to remind you what has happened before or to show you how it's playing on Lester's mind. Maybe the way in which footage of sky is used to bridge the gap between every scene. No wait, lets talk about the over use of jump cuts that make you feel like your eyes are playing up or that they simply fucked up the shot so many times they are piecing together what bits they had left.

I tried so hard to find something positive to say, after all I am a big fan of even the cheesiest horror, but there was no cheese even to save it. The only things I can think of is that the scarecrow villain is actually quite good except for all the flips n shit he does before he kills someone, but that just makes me mad that his character has been wasted. Tiffany Shepis too was ok to watch but again she wasn't used to her potential and being surrounded by people who can't act doesn't help either. You may be thinking that maybe this is so bad that it's good like an Edward D. Wood Jr or an Andy Milligan film but I'm sorry to say no, it's so bad it's bad.

Extra Features.

Bugger all! A few pages of notes trying to make out that it is a good film and a few photos which apart from the one's lifted from screen shots aren't too bad. Oh, not forgetting the bog standard trailer.

Review by Marc Woods


 
Released by Anchor Bay
Region 2 PAL
Rated 18
Extras : see main review
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