Scarecrow

Is there anyone not familiar with The Asylum? You know, The Asylum, the movie producer and distributor? Well, I guess after the success of Sharknado there might still be a few of those totally immune to what’s been going on in a last few years, but I know our readers are better than that.

So without too much ado, let’s talk about one of their eariler movies in the horror genre, called “Scarecrow”.

The Asylum did act as a distributor for a couple of movies prior to releasing the Scarecrow, but apparently (I might be wrong here, as there are some conflicting sources) this might be the first feature being produced under the The Asylum logo. But I might be wrong. A few days ago I wrote to David M. Latt, the main guy in The Asylum with the request of the clarification, but alas..no response so far. Nevermind.

If you check this movie’s score on IMDB, you’ll find nice and firm 3.5/10 (as of the date of writing this review), which is not that much surprising considering the (very) low budget nature of The Asylum movies (many of which would be quite close to the bottom of the barrel in the B-movies genre). However, what is surprising is the amount of people not really understanding what a low budget B-movie is – taking into the consideration the the fact that the rating mentioned is tied also to the reviews of the movie on IMDB, majority of those not being really flattering. What the hell did you expect, Fellini? Kubrick? Well, not happening here.

Anyway, what’s the movie about? Well, a scarecrow. Or to be more precise, The Scarecrow. But we’re getting ahead now, so let’s get back to the beginning.

We are witnesses to the mistreating of the backward white trash guy named Lester Dwervick (Tim Young, with a few other credits, for example, similar very low budget Camp Blood) in the local high school. It’s good to forget that his character, who should be about 17-18, appears to be in his 30s, but when Beverly Hills 90210 got away with it, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem here. And of course, other actors don’t look high-schoolish neither.

Lester likes to draw and that brought insults from Mrs. Melton, his teacher, for him drawing during the lessons. And everyone else picks on him as well, apart from Judy (veteran B-movie actor Tiffany Shepis), who defends him against everyone. That makes Lester think of her as something more, and so he’s very disappointed to see her kissing a local highschool jerk while drunk.

Lester runs home just to find his mother (who is a slutty drunk) in a midst of a sex act with her current lover, which doesn’t sit well with the guy and he chases Lester into the cornfield and suffocates him under the scarecrow.

Well, Lester’s soul somewhat gets into the scarecrow, making him…The Scarecrow!

And like all of us (OK, most of us), it’s only natural he would get his revenge…

Obviously, we’ve seen stuff like this before, but this shit is hilarious! Well, for one, The Scarecrow jumps around, doing flips and other acrobatic stuff, which is not usual for a supernatural villain (of sorts), and he crack one liners like a low budget Freddy combined with Leprechaun. Which, for me, is cool! And in some shots he just reminds me of Jeepers Creepers dude, which is also cool in my book.

Obviously, there still is some nonsense (some characters are just like WTF, but I guess the gravedigger is a nod to Delamorte Delamore), effects are not the greatest ones neither, majority of characters can’t act to save their life, but for the movie in this category, I can’t really complain, it only adds to this great feeling of watching a great low budget. I’ve seen much worse stuff. Although the ending is quite unexpectedly weird and Judy dispatching The Scarecrow was just …well, silly. And I’m not refering to the obviously lame filming of the scene.

Be is as it is, people should really appreciate the B-movies for what they are and not to expect something they are obviously not. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, but it’s still better than 3.5 on IMDB.

Would I recommend watching it? Of course! This is good stuff for a party night with pizza and beer, no doubt about it. And I guess it’s directed to this crowd also.