Scarecrow 3 - L'ultime massacre

The spirit of a comatose hazing victim inhabits a scarecrow and takes revenge on his tormentors. First question: What's up with all these scarecrow movies? I think I missed the beginning of the trend. Are they all inspired by the opening sequence of 'Jeepers Creepers 2'? Sadly, none of the ones I have pulled down from the shelves of my local Blockbuster have lived up that sequence. This one, however, seemed to start well. The opening sequence, where a young woman is stalked in the cornfield by the scarecrow works reasonably well. It is helped by the fact that the scarecrow is only seen sparingly. When used sparingly, the scarecrow makeup works well, but, as a result of overuse, it begins to look like a cheap mask. It looked as fake as the breasts of the woman who plays the nurse. Gratuitous nudity aside, this film has little to compliment. I was inclined to praise the video photography until I watched the 'making of' documentary that revealed it was shot on film. For video it looked good. For film it sucked. The performances were both overwrought and overripe. Granted, there really wasn't much actors could do with the script. It was stupid. The overheated relationships were never believable. Still, it might've worked on the most visceral level if the film was scary, but it wasn't. One of the things that hurt it was a whistling theme that revealed the presence of the scarecrow. At first I thought the theme existed only on the soundtrack, but later characters in the film started hearing it. I found it funny, and I would start snickering every time I heard it, which effectively undermined all the thrills. This might not be the worst horror film out there, but it does lurk dangerously near the bottom of the barrel.

Scarecrow Gone Wild is one of the most campy and cheesy movies I have ever seen, but I liked it. I liked about 90% of it anyways. I think it went about 10-15 minutes too long. The movie itself was only 90 minutes so I guess you could say it lacked some content because I wanted it to end at around 75 minutes or so.

In the first scene, I though the camera work was going to drive me crazy. It reminded me of The Blair Witch Project. Turns out that was just the director's way of making the chase scene a little different and, I guess, unique.

I was looking forward to Ken Shamrock's motion picture debut and have to say that I was sorely disappointed. The guy's a great fighter and even a pretty good professional wrestler, but unfortunately lacks in the acting department. I really wanted to like him in this movie, but he didn't bring any of his strengths to the table. Plus, he was barely in the movie, and half of it was a stretch just to get him in the scene.

Matthew Linhardt, Samantha Aisling and Tara Platt offered respectable performances. Not to mention, Tara was quite a refreshing piece of eye candy. Something about her reminds me of Rebecca Gayheart, and you get to see quite a bit of her.

I'm undecided on David Zelina's performance, only because I haven't seen any of his other work. Seems he's just trying to recreate Stiffler from the American Pie series.

Despite the campy and cheesiness of this movie, it's what we've come to expect from this genre and I think most of us have grown to like it, at least a little bit. I give this movie 7 of 10.

Scarecrow Gone Wild does not belong to the "Scarecrow" horror franchise, which started with Emmanuel Itier's film and continued with "Scarecrow Slayer". That said, Scarecrow Gone Wild is very much in the same vein as those films and will appeal to "Scarecrow" fans.

The biggest difference between this film and the other scarecrow movies is in its approach to the genre. The original "Scarecrow" was a dark, supernatural revenge film, while the sequel blended in a broader spectrum of victims but still remained true to the revenge philosophy. Scarecrow Gone Wild, on the other hand, follows a standard slasher film framework and is much closer to mainstream horror, with the requisite jolts, comedic quips and surprise moments. I'm not a big fan of most comedy/horror films but Scarecrow Gone Wild is made with such Z-movie spirit that I found it difficult to resist.

This interpretation of the story involves Sam being tied to the scarecrow during a hazing ritual. Unfortunately, Sam has diabetes and goes into insulin shock. In his comatose state, Sam's spirit merges with the Scarecrow and he promptly begins to slice and dice everyone in sight. The action comes thick and fast, with a series of increasingly unrealistic murders. This film uses every cheesy horror cliché in the book and yet that somehow just adds to its appeal. The humour generally misses the mark, but there are sufficient vaguely amusing scenarios and unintentionally funny moments to make the interludes between killings bearable.

The film benefits greatly from an enthusiastic cameo performance from the 'world's most dangerous man' himself, UFC wrestler Ken Shamrock. His hammy performance as the coach was the bad acting highlight for me, particularly during his beach side duel with the scarecrow. The main actors were competent, particularly Matthew Linhardt as Jack and David Zelina, who impresses as Mike. The special effects are reasonable but less impressive than the other "Scarecrow" films. I don't expect much from such a low budget movie but Scarecrow Gone Wild often takes the easy way out by having the murders take place off screen.

Scarecrow Gone Wild is stupid fun. The film never pretends to be anything other than trashy, low budget horror and for that I am thankful. I have my fingers crossed that the dumbest character in horror history will grace video stores with yet another ridiculous adventure in the not too distant future.

Wow! Here comes another straight-to-video scarecrow movie to keep the cinematic masochists happy. If the cheap-looking opening credits don't tell you you're in for quite a ride, then the diabolically tragic "writing" sure will.

A diabetic kid gets tied on to a legendary scarecrow as part of his initiation onto the baseball team. Then the scarecrow goes nuts and starts offing people. Need I say more? This movie consists greatly of cheap effects that makes it look like it was edited with iMovie (note that spooky color inversion) and actors who apparently weren't good enough to show up on some late-night Cinemax special. Actually, thats not fair, as the actors didn't have much room to work around the abysmal script. Parts of this movie really seem like parody, especially when one character picks up his guitar and starts playing the worst song ever conceived by humans, with the worst lip-synching ever performed to go along with it. The "gore" here is also a major disappointment. In most B-movies such as this, there is a thick layer of cheap gore FX to make up for what the story and acting lacks. Here, the stuff is so cheap that it's not even fun. This movie actually makes "Jack Frost 2" look like lots of fun in comparison.

If you think this movie is the "worst one you've ever seen" then you probably haven't gotten deep into the world of straight-to-video B-horror. Regardless, this movie will cause you a great deal of mental anguish, no matter what your background.

I supposed 'Scarecrow Gone Wild' is a dull slasher flick. Yes, it have some good point, but it's a rehash from another flick. The acts is so awful nor the plot.

The story goes from a legend about a living scarecrow on the cornfield. When an initiation become a prank and cause the life a boy in jeopardy, the scarecrow comes alive and start a killing frenzy. Sound familiar, right? It's derived from Scream, Friday the13th, Jeepeer Creepers, Children of the Corn, you name it!

'Scarecrow Gone Wild' is so below average film. Barely have a scary moment. Even the final scene is laughable! Sadly, we still could enjoy it as our time killer. But I prefer you to watch something else instead. Unless you're a big fan bad and cheesy movies, off course.

4/10