I'd never even heard of "Scarecrows" till I picked it up on DVD at the dollar store a few weeks ago. Before watching it I flicked through some of the reviews here on IMDb and was surprised to find that it had a pretty decent rating and quite a few fans, so I looked forward to sitting down and watching what appeared to be an overlooked horror gem. "Scarecrows" turned out to be a fun flick, with a few slow passages that bog it down, but overall it was worth a buck and you can't ask for much more than that, can you? Our story concerns a group of criminals who've robbed the payroll from a military base in a commando-style raid. When the movie opens they've commandeered a plane and are planning to fly to Mexico to split up the loot. Unfortunately, the plan is screwed up when one of the gang members turns on his fellows and parachutes from the plane with all of the money, prompting the rest of the troop to follow him in hopes of reclaiming the cash.
When the first robber lands, he finds himself on a deserted farm, complete with an abandoned house and surrounded by some of the ugliest scarecrows you've ever seen on this side of a "Children of the Corn" flick. He attempts to steal a pickup truck to make his way to freedom, but it doesn't take long before one of those Scarecrows teaches him the error of his ways.
By the time the rest of his teammates arrive on the farm, the house is suddenly lit up (drawing them to the slaughter) and they find what appears to be some sort of black magic altar inside, along with a photo of three backwoods-looking brothers hanging on the wall. I assume the brothers in the photo have somehow been transformed into the killer scarecrows , but this connection is never accurately explained. It doesn't really matter because once the Scarecrow-killin' action really gets going, you don't have time to think about it anymore anyway. First the turncoat robber returns to the house as a seemingly indestructible zombie, who is revealed to have been hollowed out and stuffed with straw when he's finally cut down in a hail of bullets. Despite this obvious clue that they should run like hell and not look back, greed overtakes the remaining commandos' common sense and they continue to run around the farm property looking for the stash of money only to wind up dispatched one by one by the straw men. Not only do these scarecrows have a talent for imitating the commandos' voices in order to draw their fellows in for the kill, but they also have a nasty habit of borrowing body parts from their victims to replace missing parts on their own bodies, so the gore quotient goes up pretty quickly. Machine guns and modern technology are no match for the sickle-wielding fiends, so eventually it's a race for the few survivors to make it back to the escape plane before the Scarecrows add them to the body count. In accordance with the Spoiler Warning rules I won't reveal the ending but I will say that it had a last minute twist that was both tragic and unexpected (plus a final tasteless laugh involving the pilot's dog).
The only major complaint I had with this DVD was not with the film itself, but with the quality of this particular DVD pressing. The company that released this bargain bin version of "Scarecrows" (EastWestDVD) obviously dubbed it from an extremely poor quality print, because the picture is dark and grainy (and occasionally hard to make out due to the fact that the film takes place entirely at night). I guess I really can't complain since it's on a double feature DVD (paired with the 70s zombie cheese fest "Garden of the Dead") for only a dollar, and I still found the film enjoyable. I'd be interested in finding a better quality DVD version so I can view the movie again as it was intended to be originally seen. Put this one on your Halloween viewing slate!
When the first robber lands, he finds himself on a deserted farm, complete with an abandoned house and surrounded by some of the ugliest scarecrows you've ever seen on this side of a "Children of the Corn" flick. He attempts to steal a pickup truck to make his way to freedom, but it doesn't take long before one of those Scarecrows teaches him the error of his ways.
By the time the rest of his teammates arrive on the farm, the house is suddenly lit up (drawing them to the slaughter) and they find what appears to be some sort of black magic altar inside, along with a photo of three backwoods-looking brothers hanging on the wall. I assume the brothers in the photo have somehow been transformed into the killer scarecrows , but this connection is never accurately explained. It doesn't really matter because once the Scarecrow-killin' action really gets going, you don't have time to think about it anymore anyway. First the turncoat robber returns to the house as a seemingly indestructible zombie, who is revealed to have been hollowed out and stuffed with straw when he's finally cut down in a hail of bullets. Despite this obvious clue that they should run like hell and not look back, greed overtakes the remaining commandos' common sense and they continue to run around the farm property looking for the stash of money only to wind up dispatched one by one by the straw men. Not only do these scarecrows have a talent for imitating the commandos' voices in order to draw their fellows in for the kill, but they also have a nasty habit of borrowing body parts from their victims to replace missing parts on their own bodies, so the gore quotient goes up pretty quickly. Machine guns and modern technology are no match for the sickle-wielding fiends, so eventually it's a race for the few survivors to make it back to the escape plane before the Scarecrows add them to the body count. In accordance with the Spoiler Warning rules I won't reveal the ending but I will say that it had a last minute twist that was both tragic and unexpected (plus a final tasteless laugh involving the pilot's dog).
The only major complaint I had with this DVD was not with the film itself, but with the quality of this particular DVD pressing. The company that released this bargain bin version of "Scarecrows" (EastWestDVD) obviously dubbed it from an extremely poor quality print, because the picture is dark and grainy (and occasionally hard to make out due to the fact that the film takes place entirely at night). I guess I really can't complain since it's on a double feature DVD (paired with the 70s zombie cheese fest "Garden of the Dead") for only a dollar, and I still found the film enjoyable. I'd be interested in finding a better quality DVD version so I can view the movie again as it was intended to be originally seen. Put this one on your Halloween viewing slate!