Psycho Scarecrow

This film begins in New York City on Halloween night with an attractive young woman by the name of "Sheila Murphy" (Tracy Rankin) falling to her death from a high-rise apartment. During the course of their investigation two police detectives by the names of "John Hammond" (Tim Vince) and "Rick Jones" (Joe Parro) find a tape she had recently made and begin to play it. As it turns out, she had just returned from a trip to the country with four other people and during that trip one of the men by the name of "Eric Cutter" (Douglas Kidd) gets into a fight with another one named "Floyd Carver" (Mike Upmalis) and accidentally kills him. Naturally, being horrified at what has happened Eric decides to hide Floyd's body by dressing him up as a scarecrow and hanging him in the middle of a nearby cornfield. What he doesn't know, however, is that this is no ordinary cornfield and as Floyd's blood drips into the ground it animates his new body and fills him with a deep thirst for vengeance. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say this film started off well enough but quickly fell victim to its low budget, weak acting and cheap background music. In addition to that the "Scarecrow" (also played by Mike Upmalis) looks more ridiculous than he does horrifying. In any case, I didn't consider this to be a good horror film and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

You know, I really hate films like this one. No, it's not the budget. No, it's not the cliché storyline. No, it's not the horrid acting. I hate films like this because I actually thought I was going to be surprised by how good it was after the first few minutes. The film comes on; there's actually some stylish and interesting camera angles of a bloody suicide. Artful and tasteful direction follows in the next few minutes, and I thought I was going to be in for a low-budget treat. Unfortunately, nothing ever topped the first few minutes of the film, and this was just a huge waste of time.

Psycho Scarecrow commits way too many felonies to mention in a review that can only have a maximum of 1,000 words, but I will just get the basics out of the way: Nothing is more irritating than the entire movie being spelled out in the first few minutes of film. You find out that this girl who killed herself in the first scene was the last survivor amongst a group of friends who were all killed off by the psycho scarecrow. So, there you have it, 10 minutes in and the whole film is already spelled out for you. Some could argue that this isn't such a huge crime, since a synopsis on the back of the box would probably give away half as much, but this is truly a terrible waste since it eliminates any surprise whatsoever. Plus, we have to endure endless scenes of cops talking to each other.

See, in this film, the girl who killed herself, supposedly, left a tape recorder, detailing what led to this point, and the rest of the film is told in a flashback as the cops listen to this. However, for whatever reason (to fill the time a bit maybe?), one of the cliché cops decides to stop the tape every 20 minutes or so and go, "THIS GIRL IS A LIAR. I DON'T BELIEVE THIS!" And then the two cop leads begin arguing for about 10 minutes. Pointless.

Anyway, the girl tells a story about this nerd who was abandoned by his family and stuff accidentally getting killed by one of his friends. So, her and a few other friends decide to hide his body in an old scarecrow somewhere out in the cornfield. Of course, some bizarre magic brings him back to life for a little revenge. He proceeds to go around and chase people. And chase more people. And chase more. And sometimes pull out his big axe.

Truly terrible. It's a boring movie, and boredom is pretty much the worst crime a low-budget horror movie can commit. Also, take into account the horrid acting, the little amount of blood, and you have a pretty uninvolved time on your hands. Usually with movies such as these, the more horrible you can get, the better. However, this just drags and drags and drags and beats the concept into the ground. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that this film cost $5 to make.

This film is noteworthy for only two very VERY brief scenes: the campfire acoustic song is pretty cool (no kidding; on the Brentwood release of this film on a DVD 4-pack, they use that music for the menu screens) and the last shot of the movie made me chuckle a little bit. Scarecrows + motorcycles = funny.

Other than that, avoid at all costs.

I am a huge fan of low budget horror movies that are so bad that they end up being funny. Some of my favorites include: "Wizard of Gore", "Blood Feast" and "The Demon Lover". Those were all great because they were so dumb and cheesy and were perfect to bust out when you and some friends are looking for a good laugh. I expected at least that much from this one which came packaged with three other similarly made low budget horror films called "Sleazy Slashers".

Let's get right down to business. If your movie is centered around a psycho scarecrow with a ridiculous pumpkin head, do yourself a huge favor and don't spend too much time explaining why said scarecrow is killing people. It's pretty much a given that psycho scarecrows aren't out there to hang out and drink beers. They've got to be killing folks. End of story.

Obviously, the filmmakers in this instance didn't get that memo because they go a long way towards trying to give this psycho scarecrow a purpose in "life". And that makes for some long boring scenes of exposition that just reek of lameness. If it isn't two cops being overly philosophical (read: whiny) then its a tape recorded voice of our heroine doing a voice over explaining the story another character is telling the other characters as the character is actually telling the story on the screen. Its mind bendingly atrocious.

That wouldn't be too terrible if perhaps the psycho scarecrow killing folks was worth watching. I've got to say, of all the psycho scarecrows I've seen committed to celluloid, this by far is the worst at his job. i won't get into specifics, but I will say even a blindfolded scarecrow (psycho or non-psycho) running through a deserted island with a ninja sword has a chance of matching the kill total this psycho scarecrow achieved in this movie.

And that's the real deal breaker. If you aren't going to be a good horror film, at least be a gruesome one. I mean...how do you mess that up? Really pitiful movie not worth the 99 cents somebody might charge for this atrocity of horror filmdom.

I recently got a chance to check out the new DVD version of this old title, "Psycho Scarecrow" and I was amazed. The film was digitally remastered and looks great. It has new footage, CGI effects, and the sound is way better. The intro is different and there is a cool fight scene where this house blows up. The gore stuff is better too. They made blood squirt out when people get axed, way gross. It's strange, because it's the same movie but looks and sounds better. I don't know why, but the VHS version sucks compared to this one, it's grainy and the sound it bad, sort of like a low budget porno. I don't know what the film-makers did? But, they made it better. The DVD has good bonus features too, CGI effects and photos. VHS bad, DVD good, The remasterer's should sell movie wax. "Miracle-Movie-Wax.", You too can turn B-movies into A minus movies.