Night of the Scarecrow

source: Night of the Scarecrow

Nice movie. One of the best that I have seen. Crappy ending though. When the girl was strapped to the post with barbed wire. Why did she not get the seed in her mouth. If you like bloody horror flicks with a little bit of * this movies for you. I would rate it ***** stars. An excellently done horror movie.

This minor but amusing shocker may get confused with another movie that bears a similar premise, with a similar name: the 1981 TV horror story 'Dark Night of the Scarecrow'. This can boast some atmosphere, and a fair bit of style (courtesy under-rated genre director Jeff Burr ("From a Whisper to a Scream", "Stepfather II")), as well as some entertaining effects work. It's nowhere near as good as its almost-namesake, but at least it doesn't appear to be taking itself too seriously. It also gives some enjoyable showcase roles to a roster of character actors. Super sexy Claire (Elizabeth Barondes) returns home to the small California town where her dad William (Gary Lockwood) is the mayor. She's just in time, too: soon after she gets there drunken youngster Danny (John Hawkes of 'Deadwood' and "Winter's Bone") desecrates the resting place of a spirit that then proceeds to inhabit the body of a scarecrow; said scarecrow goes about slaughtering the descendants of the man who attempted to put the spirit to rest. Claire teams up with hunky local Dillon (John Mese) to fight the rampaging scarecrow. The good thing is that "Night of the Scarecrow" isn't boring. Burr keeps it lively and makes sure that it never stops moving. The monster itself, played by Howard Swain, inspires no fright at all, and in fact all scenes with it come off as silly. The special effects, a mixture of mechanical, makeup, and digital work, are generally pretty good, and it is fun to see characters suffer a variety of truly nasty and imaginative fates. These are the kinds of things one simply has to laugh at. Impressive camera-work and good spooky music by Jim Manzie help to keep this watchable. The actors do their best at selling this standard material. Barondes is very easy on the eyes, which doesn't hurt at all. Bruce Glover ("Walking Tall", "Chinatown") gets an opportunity to tear into the scenery as the local minister - the type of minister who peruses risqué photos when alone in his church, Stephen Root ("Office Space", 'NewsRadio') is fine as the sheriff, Dirk Blocker ("Poltergeist", "Prince of Darkness") appears as a farmer, and Lockwood ("2001: A Space Odyssey", "Firecreek") is amusing as the mayor. Cult actress Martine Beswick plays Glovers' wife, and Duane Whitaker and Joe Unger are Roots' deputies. A decent if unremarkable viewing for the horror fanatic, "Night of the Scarecrow" does begin and end with a flourish. One could do worse. Seven out of 10.

If u are a fan of crappy b grade horror movies i highly recommend that u watch this movie and i think that u will like this movie.The acting in this movie is really poor and there are some OK gore scenes in this movie and the horror make up and the special affects are actually good. I was surprised to find that the OK actor Stephen Root from the good movies the lady killers and the very funny movie Dodgeball stars in this movie as the Sheriff. Over all this movie is OK and this movie is not out on DVD yet and if u find this movie on old crap video u should rent it.Over all my rating for this movie is 5 out of 10.

A group of drunken teenagers accidently release the spirit of an evil warlock who was imprisoned for hundreds of years who takes the form of a scarecrow. He then goes about the town killing the descendants of those who imprisoned him. Well made horror flick with good special effects, is still just a routine slasher flick with an unoriginal premise. Rated R; Nudity, Violence, Sexual Situations, and Profanity.

I picked up this movie because I'll watch any horror movie. I was surprised to find it was actually pretty good and fairly scary. The acting ranged from quite good to ham, and although I wished the scarecrow didn't talk it was still a pretty creepy-looking horror villain. Jeff Burr has proven himself to be an okay genre director. His first movie, The Offspring, was great, and his Stepfather and Pumpkinhead sequels were better than average. Even Leatherface was okay, though his version of the movie was seriously tampered with before release. Night of the Scarecrow doesn't make me long to see his other movies, but I'd pick them up if I tripped over them.

Warlock's spirit, trapped within a scarecrow as his burnt bones lie in a tomb buried deep within the ground of his cornfield home, rises when the erected slab imprisoning his casket is disturbed as bolts of lightning emerge awakening his lifeforce..that's the best I can explain it, folks. It seems that the community founded by the Goodmans needed magical assistance if their unfertile land and people starving were ever gonna yield any satisfying results..in comes the Warlock to fulfill their needs, with his magic book of spells as a tool to help the community thrive and land fertile. When the magician began causing such rampant sin and perversion as his granted freedom gave way to lascivious appetites, those religious townpeople, who haven't succumb to the lusts of the flesh decide to hang him on a wooden cross in the middle of a cornfield, later burning his bones & burying them in a tomb. A scarecrow was erected, as was the slab, over the burial plot of the warlock, reminding the generations of Goodmans of the deeds they committed years ago. Anyway, we are now in the present and the recently awakened warlock uses his scarecrow body to kill various Goodmans(..and others in his path)looking to retrieve his magical book of spells and reunite with his bones so that he can return to fleshly form even more powerful than he is as a walking man of string. Claire Goodman(Elizabeth Barondes)is set up as you female heroine and lover Dillon(John Mese), who works for her pops, Mayor William Goodman(Gary Lockwood, FAR removed from 2001, that's for sure)is the male hero who must stop the killer scarecrow before he is able to become all-powerful. Supernatural slasher milks the scarecrow idea for all it's worth. One scene has the scarecrow planting a seed within the lusty daughter of Priest Uncle Thaddeus(Bruce Glover, appropriately hammy as a corrupt priest who reads lingerie magazines while alone in his church)as it explodes wooden branches from her skin. Another has the scarecrow sowing Uncle Thaddeus' mouth shut. Oh, and you especially like the scene where the scarecrow causes one poor soul to grow straw from his facial orifices, fingers and torso. One scene has the scarecrow blowing straw into a cop's face like little nails that stab the guy in the face. Lots of WTF? death sequences that cause one to giggle.. Some recognizable faces include Dirk Blocker as drunken Uncle George who gets shredded by his tractor, Stephen Root as sheriff Uncle Frank who receives straw "needles" into his face, Martine Beswick as Uncle Thaddeus' wife Barbara(she likes to sew, so this ought to hint at how she'll likely perish), and John Hawkes as Danny, the nuisance who unearthed the warlock to begin with. Director Jeff Burr tries to inject some style into the incredibly asinine premise, but to enjoy this you'll have to accept the film on it's terms. Judging by the film's user rating, few have..

This movie has no redeeming qualities (okay a couple of inventive deaths but you'll be bored getting to them). Writing a review of it seems to be a waste of time but I've already wasted 90 minutes of my life watching it so if I can stop other people from doing the same then it was worth it. Think for a minute what makes bad horror movies so bad and you have Night of the Scarecrow. The director needs to go back to film school and study suspense again because this movie doesn't have any. Let me say this one last time: gore does not equal horror!!! The gore in the movie is even quite lame. I find Scarecrows scary so I had high hopes for this film but it's just another example of why horror movies get such a bad rap. The acting is mediocre as are the few shocks that the film has. Do yourself a favour and skip this dud. 1 out of 10.

This is a pretty boring slasher in my opinion, as I was quite disappointed, after reading lots of positive stuff about it. It has some decent gore scenes, but all the characters were very unlikable, and it moved along at a snail's pace, plus the only time it got interesting was the finale, as that was kind of fun to watch. I bought this at a pawn shop for a $1, as thankfully I didn't spend much money on it, plus The Scarecrow wasn't menacing at all for me, as it was just too weak looking. It may be worth a watch for Horror fanatics(like myself), but even then I would have trouble recommending it, and it's badly made and written as well, plus Gary Lockwood played his role extremely well as the prick of a Mayor!. There is one amusing moment, where a couple of drunk guys try to go mess around and pee on the Scarecrow, and things go dead wrong, and I thought the two leads Elizabeth Barondes(Claire) and John Mese(Dillion) hardly had any chemistry together at all, plus as I said the only worthwhile things are the decent gore scenes and the finale. This is a pretty boring slasher in my opinion, as I was quite disappointed after reading lots of positive stuff about it, and I say avoid it. The Direction is not very good. Jeff Burr does a bad job here with dull camera work, using a potentially good setting, only problem is it moves along too slowly, for me to really give a damn. The Acting isn't much better. Elizabeth Barondes and John Mese are mediocre as the leads, and I didn't really care about there characters, they were just there, plus it didn't help that they didn't have very good chemistry together. Stephen Root is OK as the Sheriff, and did his job adequately. Howard Swain plays the scarecrow well enough too bad it wasn't that menacing. Gary Lockwood plays the prick of a mayor very well I hated him. Rest of the cast are mediocre. Overall I'd say avoid. * out of 5

A group of drunk teenagers accidentally set free the spirit of a warlock, which possesses a scarecrow and terrorizes the small farming community of Hanford. Mike Mayo says the film "is nicely photographed with a few bloody good touches". I think this is pretty spot on. The movie really does look pretty sharp, particularly for an independent film, and the gore is respectable. Any horror fan should eat it right up. The special effects, for the most part, were above and beyond what you might expect. Lead actress Elizabeth Barondes was likable. I do not recall ever seeing her in anything else (although she did the remake of "Not of This Earth" the same year), but she deserved to be a bigger star. Apparently too late now, as she has moved on to become an interior designer. The rest of the cast is good, too, and fans of "Dodgeball" or "Office Space" will appreciate Stephen Root in the role of a sheriff. Of particular interest to me was the "orgy" scene. Filmed in crisp sepia, with plenty of throbbing and corpulent flesh. These are not all beautiful people, but they are animalistic, and I think director Jeff Burr really did himself a favor by including this scene, pushing the boundaries of the film just a bit further. Burr, in general, deserves respect. Sadly, this film is probably overshadowed by the similarly named "Dark Night of the Scarecrow". But they are both good films and have their own sensibilities. This one is much darker, much more gory. Burr's career is one horror sequel after another, which he does fine at, but his best work shines through in his original pieces like this one and "From a Whisper to a Scream". As of 2012, Olive Films has finally released this movie on to DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time. I have not seen their version, but I hope it is cleaned up nice and has a special feature or two. The Netflix streaming version is full frame and somewhat fuzzy, suggesting a VHS transfer. I know this film does not have the fan following of other mid-1990s horror films, but perhaps with the Netflix exposure more people will push the right people to give this film a decent release.