“Scarecrows” is a horror film that was released in 1988 from Effigy Films. William Wesley and Richard Jefferies are the screenwriters of this mildly interesting, gruesome cinematic achievement. Okay, it’s a B film. No actor in this thing is anyone that would be recognizable to most of the general audience. There is also some atrocious dialogue. I’m sorry, but having a character say something along the lines of “I think this place is possessed by demonic demons” is just inexcusable. How that one got by the editors is very perplexing. That just seems to be glaringly bad even for a film of this subpar caliber.
Now, not everything is terrible. The basic premise is that a group of mercenaries pulled off a heist of some sort and made their escape by hijacking a cargo pilot with a father/daughter crew. One of the thieves turns on his cohorts and jumps out of the plane with the booty. When the other miscreants follow him, they find themselves in a field littered with scarecrows that are a bit more lively and lethal than most.
Yes, it’s a bit of a stupid plot, but the scarecrows were sort of well realized. They also seemed capable of some sort of mental and psychic manipulation, which I found rather surprising and creative. There were some suspenseful moments where I was actually pretty well drawn in. The performances were not stellar by any means, but I have seen worse. There was not a lot of explanation as to the origin of such forces, but I actually found the absence of that to be fine. The movie also starts in the middle of the getaway. The robbery is not seen onscreen. The actual kidnapping of the protagonists has already occurred. The viewer is dropped right in the middle of the escape, which I thought was an interesting way to start the film that worked surprisingly well.
This is for people with a taste for macabre B horror films. So, I think one can still have fun watching it with comfortably low expectations. It does fit in well enough with the current Halloween season. Not everyone is going to appreciate this thing, but my fellow B horror aficionados should get some amusement out of it. I certainly did.
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