A Maldição dos Espantalhos

A lot of horror fans seem to love Scarecrows, so I won't be very popular in saying that I found it to be rather boring. The idea behind it was interesting, but it seems to drag so much. I think the main problem is that it is all set in darkness. Sometimes horror films set in darkness can work (such as Humongous), but Scarecrows is in darkness for the whole film. A lot of the time it's hard to figure out what's actually happening, and although some shots of the scarecrows were creepy, most were hard to even see. If a little more lighting had been used, perhaps it could've been better.

There's not many films involving killer scarecrows to my knowledge, apart from Dark Night Of The Scarecrow, which is much better. I would recommend that over Scarecrows any day.

Man, what a horror movie! The idea about killer scarecrows may turn a lot of people off by sounding cheezy, but this is talented filmmaking by people who knew what to do, and, best of all, what NOT to do. The dark, quiet, breezy cornfields of a deserted-looking rural area, with no one around for who knows how many miles, is served with some great creepy atmosphere. The music helps, with a lot of the soundtrack's more sedated moments being the creepiest of all. The gore and visual shocks are very detailed and well-done, but they are kept to a minimum for a lot of the running time. Still, as they say, when it rains, it pours! The acting is great, and the writers did the right thing when they knew NOT to try to give any explanation for how the killer scarecrows came to be other than as much as the characters can figure out (a cleverly vague theory about a family that had been living on the farm who were probably in league with Satan). A lot of great powers are wielded by the scarecrows, including the exact imitation of victims' voices and the ability to reanimate their victims for use to their own fiendish means. There is some humor, but it's character-to-character banter rather than any type of comedy. This is no goofy movie by any means. It really also creeped me out about how the scarecrows move with a sort of stealth, and silently run right up behind a character and off them in seconds, without warning. I had some serious trouble sleeping after this one, but that is a compliment. Not many movies have been able to do that with me, and even fewer are ones I still found enjoyable enough to search down in a used video store and shell out ten bucks to buy. I would only recommend the unrated version, but this is one of those movies that is hard to find in its rated version, so if you come across it, it will probably be unrated. Creepy, creepy stuff, the best way to describe this sadly overlooked masterpiece of horror cinema.

A Joe Pesci look alike and his military friends rob and kidnap a father/daughter combo, escaping in a jet airplane. During flight, one of the robbers grabs the loot and parachutes onto a farm haunted by demonic scarecrows. They land, and it becomes obvious that the human characters here don't matter, scarecrows are the main draw.

It's super low-budget without showing too much, and the acting is very b-movie in an enjoyable way. Unfortunately, the story is just a set up to have guys with guns get sneakily picked off by alie.. I mean predato.. I mean scarecrows.

But the simple plot works through decent effects, competent direction, and the scarecrows themselves. (They're near invulnerable, wield knives, pitchforks, cleavers, and sew people full of leaves to make them into zombified slaves.)

There's some genuinely creepy moments and some laughable schlock. If you don't go in expecting much, this can be a fun ride.

For a low budget suspense flick this isn't half bad. It has a lot of good atmosphere, decent gore(I've seen gorier though.), and pretty likeable characters. This one's about a military gang that steals money from their own base and hide out in the cornfeilds where they are killed of by zombie scarecrows. Good story, and effects. *** out of *****. Good for a Friday or Saturday night.

Scarecrows (1988)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fairly entertaining horror film has a group of robbers forcing a father and his daughter to fly them to Mexico but along the way the gang leader jumps out of the plane with the money. Soon his "co-workers" go after him and they all find themselves in a strange field with countless scarecrows that come to life. SCARECROWS isn't exactly going to win any major awards but I think horror fans who enjoy some gore should find it of interest. In its uncut form the picture actually offers up some very memorable death scenes ranging from decapitations to bodies being sliced in half and there are some even more memorable ones where the gore factor is pretty over-the-top. It's certainly easy to see why two versions of this was released as the uncut one features enough red stuff where there was no way the studio could have gotten it past the MPAA. These effects certainly help the film move along as do the great looking villains. The scarecrows are pretty much what you'd expect them to look like but I really loved them. I thought each of them in their own way looked terrific and really gave the film some much needed atmosphere. The performances were also above average for this type of picture and there's no question that director William Wesley managed to build up some good atmosphere. The biggest problem is that between the fifty and sixty minute marks there's really nothing going on and the film grows a little boring before finally picking up in the final act. The various shots of the airplane flying was also annoying and especially when they just used the same shot over and over again. Still, with the memorable death scenes and great looking monsters, SCARECROWS offers up enough to make it worth watching.