Espantapájaros

I'm a fifty-something woman who's still impressed by our high-tech world. I love music on CD's, microwave ovens, cable TV, computers, the Internet -- and my DVD player.

These wonderful consumer items were undreamed of when I was growing up, which is why I'm so disgusted by some of the alleged movies that get a DVD release.

And I really hate it when I unwittingly end up renting one them. "Scarecrow," for instance. I guess I'm a fool for a halfway competently designed DVD box, or something.

This flick is an amateur production through and through -- poorly written and acted, boringly predictable. And criminally lame with the jokes -- for instance, one guy is killed when the scarecrow rams an ear of corn in his ear. Get it? Get it?

What a total waste of technology in the 21st century.

This movie could be used in film classes in a "How Not to Script a B-Movie" course. There are inherent constrictions in a B-movie: Budgets are tight, Time is precious (Scarecrow was apparently shot in 8 days) and the actors are often green and inexperienced. The one aspect you have complete control over is writing the best script you can within the limitations set before you. Scarecrow's script seems to have been written in a drunken haze. I could go through about fifteen examples of the nonsensical scripting of this movie, but I'll just mention one: The Gravedigger. The character of the gravedigger is introduced about an hour into the movie. He seemingly has no connection to any of the other characters already in the movie. He is shown with his daughter, who also has no connection to anybody else in the movie. The gravedigger is given a couple scenes to act surly in and then is killed to pad out the body count. Why give the Gravedigger a daughter? Why give the daughter a boyfriend? Why introduce them so late in the movie? Why not try to make them part of the ongoing storyline? Scarecrow doesn't seem to care.

The "story" of Scarecrow goes something like this: Lester is a high school kid (played by and actor who'd I'd peg to be in his early 30's) who is picked on by the other kids. He is an artist who draws birds and has a crush on a classmate named Judy. His mom is a lush and the town whore. One of her reprobate boyfriends makes fun of his drawings (by calling him a "faggot" for drawing birds instead of "monsters and cowboys." If you have a high school student still drawing cowboys I'd think him to more likely be gay than a high school student who draws crows) and later, kills Lester, in a cornfield, under the titular scarecrow. Magically, Lester's soul goes into the scarecrow. Somehow, this transference changes Lester's soul from that of an artist into that of a wisecracking gymnast (I know some reviews have called the scarecrow a Kung-Fu scarecrow. I disagree. The scarecrow practically does a whole floor routine before jumping onto the truck during the climax of the movie). The scarecrow then goes on to kill those who tormented him, those who smoke pot in the corn field, those who dig graves, boyfriends of daughters of gravediggers, pretty much anyone who showed up on the movie set.

The bonus feature on the DVD should be mentioned. The director (a Frenchman) does an impromptu version of rap music, admits he enjoys not having executives around on set so he can screw his wife while working and gives a quote to live by (and I'm paraphrasing): "Life ez a bitch, but et has a great ass"

Number of Beers I drank while watching this movie: 5 Did it help: No Number of Beers needed to enjoy this movie: Whatever it takes to get to blackout drunk level.

I couldn't sleep for months after watching Scarecrow. Emmanuel Itier is a brilliant new director/writer and I'd love to see more of his work. Roxanna Bina is totally plausible as Stephanie. After seeing this chilling film I am now totally scared of Scarecrows since Emmanuel Itier's Scarecrow bears little resemblance to the friendly Wizard of Oz variety who only wants a brain. This scary Scarecrow clearly has a deeply evil brain and is not afraid to use it. No birds are going to sit on Itier's Scarecrow for long before being frightened out of their feathers...Not for the faint of heart....

This is a silly movie from french director with silly script too and all shoddy acting with many idiots actors, most notably from "Scarecrow", It's a really bad , So bad film.

always I like to watch about killer scarecrow movies, but with this Scarecrow the matter so different with the more recent Scarecrows, specially when I have read the french director "Emmanuel Itier" that claims he has been influenced by the Italian director "Dario Argento" ! I confess here that almost the Scarecrows-Movies has certainly been designed by professional crews, but sadly, we can't say the same meaning anymore for new-scarecrows movies .

1 out of 5

this movie sucks. just straight out, it sucks. i bought it for the box cover because it looked scary, but like that piece of s**t S.I.C.K., the box art fooled you. it is about this kid who gets pushed around and then this redneck guy who looks like mario(maybe the only entertaining part of the movie, if you like funny stuff) strangles him and 'SOMEHOW' this "nerd's" soul gets transfered into a scarecrow. he goes around killing people. you see, this is actually not a bad idea for a movie... but... the way the put it on film SUCKED. there are three main(there are many more than that actually) things that could have fixed this film. they are, john carpenter as director, use AT LEAST 8mm or super 8 and not f***ing digital cameras, and lose the acrobat sh** where the scarecrow does flips and that is just stupid.

i had to put these films two spaces down from that review so they wouldn't get contaminated with this... uhh... "movie", i guess you could say.

i recommend these highly: tourist trap, halloween(forget the sequels), black Christmas, all the fridays, the nightmare box set, Texas chainsaw(original and remake), prom night, the funhouse, there are many more, i just can't fit them all on here. scarecrow sucks, and this is coming from a guy who thinks jack frost is cool and mildly scary, at least it was well done and had some cool lines, well it aint f***in frosty! that was rad. not like hello, dadio, like it that sh**fest scarecrow. true horror fans, fans of crap like scream and the ring, even fans of old silent films and fans of baseball, everyone, stay away from this film, it has no genre, unless sh** is a genre.