"Scarecrow Slayer" is a pretty banal scarecrow slasher film.
**SPOILERS**
Fraternity pledges Dave, (Brett Erickson) Karl, (David Castro) Mary Anderson, (Nicole Kingston) and Judy, (Elizabeth Perry) sneak onto Caleb Kilgore's, (Tony Todd) cornfield to rob a scarecrow to join. Mistaking them stealing it to be a prophesied legend come true, Dave is accidentally killed. When they awake the next morning to live with their situation, Mary comes to realize what happen, that her boyfriend has died and could quite possibly be a murderous scarecrow. When their fraternity members start dying in gruesome ways, they suspect that the scarecrow is the culprit and is setting off on getting revenge for his death. Only Mary figures she can stop him before it's too late.
The Good News: The second in a trilogy that no one knew existed means that it isn't all that spectacular when really looked at. The scarecrow costume this time isn't changed around so it can still give off some cheap thrills. The only design change is a slight redesign of the stitches over his eyes, but it's not a fairly noticeable one and really isn't that noteworthy, except for some shots that really make it look a little spookier, but this happens rarely. The big thing to recommend here, though, is the deaths. It's a little more inventive than the one before, though not by much. Here we get a couple decapitations, an impaling on a pitchfork, a rather splatter-filled crushing behind a door and being scythed in half, which is the best scene in the film. Cornering a car, one character attempts to take it when we get a close-up view of it's stomach, and after a couple of seconds, his upper body slides off and lands on the ground. Really interesting scene. Other than these few things, though, not much to compliment.
The Bad News: Oh, boy, where do I start? I honestly don't know where to start with on here, it's all pretty bad. The obvious ones, dialog, acting, direction, and mostly anything technical are included in this list as being bad, but that's just the beginning. The opening makes no sense whatsoever. It takes fifteen minutes before the plot kicks in and the scarecrow comes out, yet there is so much back-story going on, it makes the whole incredibly confusing. Add to that, nothing is seen clearly as there is a strange hue around the film, it's harder than normal and makes it impossible to see the action. That is a compounding problem for most of the movie actually and it doesn't make the movie all the more stylish because of it. The hue is distracting, and makes the scene hard to view as you're centered on the huing instead of what's going on, ruining the film of what little action there is. That's the next thing: there's hardly anything in here that will keep your attention for more than twenty minutes or so, as the film is so devoid of anything resembling action, making an already strained picture all the more harder to sit through. When there's nothing there, you have to rely on a story to get through the dull spots, but the one here is so inept and dull, it doesn't really matter all that much. The plot here is so identical to the first one that a full review could be written just based on the similarities between the two films. Besides the one cool scene earlier, the gore is pretty bad. Not at all realistically done or convincing, and considering that there is a high body count is a shame. The ending is a total non-event, draws no action and makes it go by pretty slowly. There is just so much I could go on about, it's really a shame. Even the characters are very annoying, and that is a huge one right there.
The Final Verdict: This is pretty bad on most accounts, and not really features much to recommend it. Even a couple nice deaths can't really make it exciting, and it invariably leads to boredom. See it only if you are a hardcore fan of the scarecrow films or the cheapest of the cheap films.
Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language
**SPOILERS**
Fraternity pledges Dave, (Brett Erickson) Karl, (David Castro) Mary Anderson, (Nicole Kingston) and Judy, (Elizabeth Perry) sneak onto Caleb Kilgore's, (Tony Todd) cornfield to rob a scarecrow to join. Mistaking them stealing it to be a prophesied legend come true, Dave is accidentally killed. When they awake the next morning to live with their situation, Mary comes to realize what happen, that her boyfriend has died and could quite possibly be a murderous scarecrow. When their fraternity members start dying in gruesome ways, they suspect that the scarecrow is the culprit and is setting off on getting revenge for his death. Only Mary figures she can stop him before it's too late.
The Good News: The second in a trilogy that no one knew existed means that it isn't all that spectacular when really looked at. The scarecrow costume this time isn't changed around so it can still give off some cheap thrills. The only design change is a slight redesign of the stitches over his eyes, but it's not a fairly noticeable one and really isn't that noteworthy, except for some shots that really make it look a little spookier, but this happens rarely. The big thing to recommend here, though, is the deaths. It's a little more inventive than the one before, though not by much. Here we get a couple decapitations, an impaling on a pitchfork, a rather splatter-filled crushing behind a door and being scythed in half, which is the best scene in the film. Cornering a car, one character attempts to take it when we get a close-up view of it's stomach, and after a couple of seconds, his upper body slides off and lands on the ground. Really interesting scene. Other than these few things, though, not much to compliment.
The Bad News: Oh, boy, where do I start? I honestly don't know where to start with on here, it's all pretty bad. The obvious ones, dialog, acting, direction, and mostly anything technical are included in this list as being bad, but that's just the beginning. The opening makes no sense whatsoever. It takes fifteen minutes before the plot kicks in and the scarecrow comes out, yet there is so much back-story going on, it makes the whole incredibly confusing. Add to that, nothing is seen clearly as there is a strange hue around the film, it's harder than normal and makes it impossible to see the action. That is a compounding problem for most of the movie actually and it doesn't make the movie all the more stylish because of it. The hue is distracting, and makes the scene hard to view as you're centered on the huing instead of what's going on, ruining the film of what little action there is. That's the next thing: there's hardly anything in here that will keep your attention for more than twenty minutes or so, as the film is so devoid of anything resembling action, making an already strained picture all the more harder to sit through. When there's nothing there, you have to rely on a story to get through the dull spots, but the one here is so inept and dull, it doesn't really matter all that much. The plot here is so identical to the first one that a full review could be written just based on the similarities between the two films. Besides the one cool scene earlier, the gore is pretty bad. Not at all realistically done or convincing, and considering that there is a high body count is a shame. The ending is a total non-event, draws no action and makes it go by pretty slowly. There is just so much I could go on about, it's really a shame. Even the characters are very annoying, and that is a huge one right there.
The Final Verdict: This is pretty bad on most accounts, and not really features much to recommend it. Even a couple nice deaths can't really make it exciting, and it invariably leads to boredom. See it only if you are a hardcore fan of the scarecrow films or the cheapest of the cheap films.
Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language