Scarecrow

Moviecut—Scarecrow

For this genre the movie is really good. It has a good cast, and as some have mentioned earlier, the female cast get no complains from me. I agree with other reviews that the CGI are quite good, and you can't really complain on acting in this kind of film it's not why you watch them. There are only a few things I got hung up on. One, the monster don't have any resemblance to a scarecrow. Two, there is not a shred of explanation to the story what so ever. If they had mad any kind of attempt to explain why there was a monster and why it did what it did, I would give it a higher rating. Sadly there is none. But besides that it well worth watching.

'Scarecrow' has its flaws and its moments; it certainly beats some of the SyFy channel's other movies like "Dark Storm" and "Mongolian Death Worm" but it's cheesy and the characters are shallow. The plot follows a group of teens (who all look to be in their Twenties), who go to a day-long detention repairing a farmhouse right before the town's annual Scarecrow Festival. The main troublemakers seem to be Tyler and Nikki (Nikki is called a Goth but definitely doesn't look the part and is more of a sneaky brat than anything else). Anyway, as the plot goes on, an evil entity called The Scarecrow is disturbed and begins going on a killing rampage, taking any person or animal in the vicinity. The soundtrack wasn't bad, the acting wasn't the best but was better than the usual SyFy casts, and I've gotta say, the effects were pretty good! I was expecting really bad CGI and there was some, but a lot of the effects looked great in the movie. I wish there hadn't been so much sex jokes and that type of thing, crude humor has never appealed to me or made me interested in a horror movie, but it's easy to overlook since it seems to go away once Tyler and Nikki have "bought the farm". All in all, Scarecrow wasn't great, but it was much better than I was expecting. It's worth checking out for a fun Halloween movie with your friends or just to pass the time on a Saturday night. And if you don't like it, at least you can make fun of it.

1.9 of 10. For a film that originates on a channel called "SyFy", there's not even science fiction in this massively dumb story. The characters and acting don't help. Some "horror" films at least provide some soft-core sex to fill in gaps, but no luck in this PG horror for kiddies nonsense. I can only imagine children who still take the Grinch, Santa, and ghosts of Christmas past seriously could enjoy a Halloween story so flimsy. There are some good copycat video and audio FX in this. Hopefully the people responsible for them will be put to better use with more competent writers, directors, and actors.

Everything in this movie felt like it had been done before, with no effort to add anything original, but I guess that is how it is with low budget direct to TV horror movies. The farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, thinking they've killed the monster, and retreating to another house get help. This movie was not even remotely scary because everything was recycled. Another recycle was someone suggesting sacrificing a victim to the monster to try and get it to stop, but instead a bighearted person steps up to try and save the others. I don't see how this thing was a scarecrow. Almost no gore which was kind of a good thing because it would have made the movie even more cheesy. Mildly entertaining though, because you can almost predict everything that will happen, and want to see if you're right. 2/10 because of this

I can be rather short about reviewing this flick. It's not scary at all but still you keep watching it to know how it will end. The story itself you have seen a thousand times before and Jeepers Creepers (2001) isn't far away. What turns it a bit down is that the scarecrow always is done in CGI. It doesn't look that bad after all but sometimes it do looks cheap. Luckily the wounds it creates on it's victims do look gruesome. The flick starts in a gory way and from that point it continues without a lot of boring moments. But as I said, you have seen it all before and there are already a few flicks out concerning scarecrows. Let Husk (2011) be much better than this one but it's watchable. I guess youth will do have it's scary moments but again, the CGI do sometimes attracts you more than the story itself due a few continuity mistakes. Let be the car crash the most important one. At the end of the day its' a CGIcrow with some nasty wounds being involved. Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

While Scarecrow is left wanting somewhat, for SyFy it really isn't so bad. There are some good things. Scarecrow is one of SyFy's better-looking recent movies, the scenery is good and atmosphere and it is slickly shot. The quality of the scarecrow design is not bad at all, in fact apart from some too-smooth movements, which for SyFy is saying a good deal. The score does have some eeriness, and the beginning sets things up nicely. The acting is better than average also, Lacey Chabert and Robin Dunne fare the best and they are good. The direction is of the kind is that is never inept or adept, competent is the best word though it could have been with more crispness and character in the latter part of the movie. There are failings in Scarecrow though. The biggest failing is that it doesn't convey its horror elements very well. There are some moments in the first half, but much of it suffers from being too been-there-done-that quality, from not knowing when to end, from having a lack of build-up or suspense and that the fear and danger levels are quite low. The story is refreshingly simple to begin with and starts promisingly, sadly it is also the kind of story that later on becomes too simple and runs out of ideas too early. There is also too much down-time and exposition, coupled with the lack of scares there are too many of tediousness. The dialogue could have done with being tighter, and with less of an over-serious and simplistic approach. The exposition scenes are particularly bad in this regard. And while the scarecrow is good in look, it also doesn't have much of a personality and is severely under-utilised. In conclusion, not bad, could have been worse but it's nothing particularly great either. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Trapped in the countryside while visiting a friend's house, a group of troubled teens and their teacher learn that a local legend about a haunted scarecrow living on the property and begins to hunt them down one-by-one as part of the special ceremony for it's release. This here turned out to be quite a disjointed and scattershot but still left enough positive points that there's some really good parts. One of the biggest problems here is the fact that the scarecrows are introduced so early on that there's several missed opportunities with this tactic. There's never a chance to build any suspense in this through the gradual discovery of who's performing all the grisly murders and who's around the house with them makes for some compelling moments, yet that is wasted here by the early reveal. As well, the fact that this means it has to eat up a bunch of screen-time being introduced to everyone without the scarecrow murdering people means this one tends to work backwards, being introduced to the horror before going for the character build-up and that leaves a very disjointed and off-kilter pace that really means that there's a lot of down-time after the initial attacks have taken place, which just doesn't seem to work all that well. The fact that these take place when they're all huddled together in the farmhouse not doing anything makes them all the more obvious, and frankly that's a little tough to take. Add in the fake-looking CGI for the creatures and there's some pretty big problems to overcome. There's still some good stuff, though, in that the kills are all really bloody and gory offering plenty of fun there, the fact that the killer is loose means the second half is all chasing which is certainly a big deal and the fact that the finale is action-packed, with the ambush in the second farmhouse leading to the water-taxi depot and all the explosions and stalking in that location makes for quite a good time as this is certainly an action-filled effort. As well, the backstory about the creatures is quite a bit of fun and is certainly different from the usual fare associated with these movies. All in all, it's got enough to like along with some flaws. Rated R: Violence and Language.

I was very skeptical when I first thought about watching this movie. I mean, lets face it. Most syfy channel original movies suck. Horrible acting, actors in their 30's portraying "teens", horrible story, limited gore, and horrible creature cgi effects. Look at "Sharknado" as a prime example. But this...this was actually pretty good. The "kids" are once again all obviously actors well past that stage in their life, and while there's one or two that couldn't act their way out of a paper bag, the majority of the cast is descent. Thete's actually a plot, and...surprise surprise, it actually makes sense. While the scarecrow is completely cgi, and obvious at that, its better than most creature effects in syfy channel movies, and one of the cooler looking ones at that. And you see it quite often after the first half. While there isn't much in terms of gore or blood, there is one surprisingly bloody scene in the beginning of the movie, and looks like it would hurt like hell. All in all, a surprisingly decent effort by a cable channel that is known to have horrible movies.

Okay a group of detention high school students take a bus to an abandoned farm to disassemble a supposedly historic scarecrow for reassembly in town. The first question I have is if the farm is abandoned who planted all the corn? There is the nerd, why is he in detention to start with? You have the bad guy and his *, the cool ones I guess. Lacy Chabert shows up as the last remaining owner of the farm. Those who get drug through the corn rows show show parallel scares on their faces but there are only two each. Why, the creature shows five claws/fingers? The teacher starts to go for the ex-boyfriends truck but the nerd, trying to be a hero I guess gets there, he is killed by the thing that looks more like a burnt to a crisp spider than a scarecrow. The kids start dieing one by one which is not a bad thing with most of those that are portrayed. Thin the gene pool. When they run to the barn I noticed that the bales of hay are very conveniently placed as steps. The CGI of the entity reminds me a lot of the shots in the Mummy when it is trying to reconstitute itself. When everyone that is still alive escapes in the working cop car (why does it work and not the truck?) Driving out why did the driver swerve when the thing appeared in the rod? Run over the damn thing. The ex-boyfriend is on brave sucker when he rolls under the vehicle and sets it on fire with the creature there with him. So now there are four left, gee who dies next? The old farmer fills in some background on what the thing is and whats going on to some extent. When he separates himself from the others thinking he will be safer he is wrong. Now there are three, they come across a farm machine that I am not familiar with. They get it fired up and drag the creature and Beth into it. It grinds it up but is it dead? Nah, of course not. The last surviving student is left to watch the area and gets chomped by the not dead monster. This creature seems to have no limitations as to time of day or how far it can go from the farm, not typical for this type of film. Usually there seems to be restrictions on the bad guys movements or when they are active. Going berserk after Erin is killed, lacy grabs the fire axe she had dropped, runs down stairs, traps the creature in a derelict ship and sets on fire to blow up. Where the spark came from for the explosion I missed. Watchable but not one I would keep.