Amityville Scarecrow

AMITYVILLE SCARECROW is one of those ulta-cheap British indie horrors that seem to be doing the rounds these days, and of course it has nothing to do with the perennial American film franchise that's turned up a few gems along the way. So another cheap cash-in, in other words. This one's about a family doing up an old cornfield but finding themselves haunted by a scarecrow that goes around butchering people off-screen. It's dire stuff indeed, too dark, too plodding, badly acted and written by someone who has no idea how real-life people really communicate. As a horror film, it's a complete failure. Par for the course, in other words...

What can I say?

Geography may not be my best subject, but I thought Long Island was in the states, not across the pond.

The cover art was nice. The acting was meh.

I have seen better, scarier movies on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.

This was a bad, glorified Lifetime Network movie with all the back and forth drama between the characters. And this is not a dig on Lifetime, I have seen much better movies on that channel.

The only thing I liked the most about this movie is when the end credits rolled.

Unwatchable.....total garbage. Just another stupid made for TV terrible movie. Acting is the worst possible. I was hoping the scarecrow would end up killing all those whining idiot women. Avoid this trash at all costs. Not even worth a 1 rating.

This film begins with two estranged sisters named "Mary" (Kate Sandison) and "Tina" (Amanda Jade-Tyler) meeting to discuss the will their mother left behind after her death. More specifically, their concern revolves around a campground which Mary wants to sell while Tina wants to renovate and expand upon it instead. Of course, considering that Tina previously stole Mary's husband, the issue of the campground is actually secondary at this point. However, as might be expected, all of that is put aside when a scarecrow suddenly comes alive and begins killing everyone. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I initially thought that this was going to be one of the few good films in this massive series due in large part to the nature in which the characters were developed. Likewise, having a scarecrow as the supernatural entity behind the killings certainly didn't hurt either. Where the film suffers, however, is the exact location of this supposed campground and its relationship to the actual house in Amityville. I say this because I don't recall any mention of a cornfield being situated in Amityville or, for that matter, any mention of the actual house there either. Instead, the audience is given an alternate story about a child molester who was killed by Mary and Tina's mother for the murder of their older sister. Or something like that. It's all kind of confusing. Throw in weak special effects and a complete lack of suspense and it all adds up to a rather weak horror film, which I have rated accordingly. Below average.

The amount of time it took me to think of that title pun is the same time it took the filmmakers to work on this movie.

An estranged family inherits their dead mothers campground (the land was a cornfield that never could grow corn *spoooooky*

One sister slept with the others husband long ago and now they hate each other. Much to one's dismay, they decide to try and fix the camp up and make a go of it. Unfortunately there happens to be two murderous scarecrows on the grounds.

Typical of most of today's low budget horror from the UK, Amityville Scarecrow looks nice. Lighting and cinematography are competent. The actors are mostly decent, with the only exception being the sister Mary - her shrill voice and angry attitude make you want the scarecrow to off her asap. Music and sound design are also pretty poor, I would be surprised if the music wasn't all free stock tracks, and the audio in several scenes has an extremely loud sound floor of wind, likely to mask that the audio was recorded with that same noise I would guess.

How about what we are here for: the horror content? The scarecrow costume is basically a higher end Halloween costume, but it looks decent. The kills however are uniformly awful. Most kills are offscreen and we get a body with a dribble of blood from its mouth.

If they had spent some money on even rudimentary special effects and provided some gore, Amityville Scarecrow could have been a passable slasher flick, instead, we get another in the ever growing long list of terrible Amityville flops.

Oh, and how does this relate to Amityville you ask? Well it seems that the High Hopes house was located on the land and torn down to build this campground. How Long Island has mysteriously transported to the English countryside is not mentioned.