Scarecrow Gone Wild

Scarecrow Gone Wild is one of the most campy and cheesy movies I have ever seen, but I liked it. I liked about 90% of it anyways. I think it went about 10-15 minutes too long. The movie itself was only 90 minutes so I guess you could say it lacked some content because I wanted it to end at around 75 minutes or so.

In the first scene, I though the camera work was going to drive me crazy. It reminded me of The Blair Witch Project. Turns out that was just the director's way of making the chase scene a little different and, I guess, unique.

I was looking forward to Ken Shamrock's motion picture debut and have to say that I was sorely disappointed. The guy's a great fighter and even a pretty good professional wrestler, but unfortunately lacks in the acting department. I really wanted to like him in this movie, but he didn't bring any of his strengths to the table. Plus, he was barely in the movie, and half of it was a stretch just to get him in the scene.

Matthew Linhardt, Samantha Aisling and Tara Platt offered respectable performances. Not to mention, Tara was quite a refreshing piece of eye candy. Something about her reminds me of Rebecca Gayheart, and you get to see quite a bit of her.

I'm undecided on David Zelina's performance, only because I haven't seen any of his other work. Seems he's just trying to recreate Stiffler from the American Pie series.

Despite the campy and cheesiness of this movie, it's what we've come to expect from this genre and I think most of us have grown to like it, at least a little bit. I give this movie 7 of 10.

OK, when Ken Shamrock was in the UFC I was kind of a fan. Then he went to wresting and became a joke. Well boy did he just cement his place in the hall of Sham. This movie is as bad as it gets, with the sad new direction that horror is headed. Only one word comes to mind when I think of this movie, "Stupid". The acting is terrible, I never even got a jolt from a sudden surprise. It just kind of walks through the movie, with the actors talking out their lines with little or no emotion. I was so bored with this lifeless movie, I was begging for the scarecrow to kill them all. This movie suffers from the worse camera direction that all true horror fans hate. When the murder is about to happen they cut to another scene. That did it for me. Just think they have another one scheduled for release in Sept. Oh boy can't wait. Maybe I will just go watch "Scream" again, and do what the title suggests. Don't waste your time or money on this clunker.

Scarecrow Gone Wild does not belong to the "Scarecrow" horror franchise, which started with Emmanuel Itier's film and continued with "Scarecrow Slayer". That said, Scarecrow Gone Wild is very much in the same vein as those films and will appeal to "Scarecrow" fans.

The biggest difference between this film and the other scarecrow movies is in its approach to the genre. The original "Scarecrow" was a dark, supernatural revenge film, while the sequel blended in a broader spectrum of victims but still remained true to the revenge philosophy. Scarecrow Gone Wild, on the other hand, follows a standard slasher film framework and is much closer to mainstream horror, with the requisite jolts, comedic quips and surprise moments. I'm not a big fan of most comedy/horror films but Scarecrow Gone Wild is made with such Z-movie spirit that I found it difficult to resist.

This interpretation of the story involves Sam being tied to the scarecrow during a hazing ritual. Unfortunately, Sam has diabetes and goes into insulin shock. In his comatose state, Sam's spirit merges with the Scarecrow and he promptly begins to slice and dice everyone in sight. The action comes thick and fast, with a series of increasingly unrealistic murders. This film uses every cheesy horror cliché in the book and yet that somehow just adds to its appeal. The humour generally misses the mark, but there are sufficient vaguely amusing scenarios and unintentionally funny moments to make the interludes between killings bearable.

The film benefits greatly from an enthusiastic cameo performance from the 'world's most dangerous man' himself, UFC wrestler Ken Shamrock. His hammy performance as the coach was the bad acting highlight for me, particularly during his beach side duel with the scarecrow. The main actors were competent, particularly Matthew Linhardt as Jack and David Zelina, who impresses as Mike. The special effects are reasonable but less impressive than the other "Scarecrow" films. I don't expect much from such a low budget movie but Scarecrow Gone Wild often takes the easy way out by having the murders take place off screen.

Scarecrow Gone Wild is stupid fun. The film never pretends to be anything other than trashy, low budget horror and for that I am thankful. I have my fingers crossed that the dumbest character in horror history will grace video stores with yet another ridiculous adventure in the not too distant future.

The spirit of a comatose hazing victim inhabits a scarecrow and takes revenge on his tormentors. First question: What's up with all these scarecrow movies? I think I missed the beginning of the trend. Are they all inspired by the opening sequence of 'Jeepers Creepers 2'? Sadly, none of the ones I have pulled down from the shelves of my local Blockbuster have lived up that sequence. This one, however, seemed to start well. The opening sequence, where a young woman is stalked in the cornfield by the scarecrow works reasonably well. It is helped by the fact that the scarecrow is only seen sparingly. When used sparingly, the scarecrow makeup works well, but, as a result of overuse, it begins to look like a cheap mask. It looked as fake as the breasts of the woman who plays the nurse. Gratuitous nudity aside, this film has little to compliment. I was inclined to praise the video photography until I watched the 'making of' documentary that revealed it was shot on film. For video it looked good. For film it sucked. The performances were both overwrought and overripe. Granted, there really wasn't much actors could do with the script. It was stupid. The overheated relationships were never believable. Still, it might've worked on the most visceral level if the film was scary, but it wasn't. One of the things that hurt it was a whistling theme that revealed the presence of the scarecrow. At first I thought the theme existed only on the soundtrack, but later characters in the film started hearing it. I found it funny, and I would start snickering every time I heard it, which effectively undermined all the thrills. This might not be the worst horror film out there, but it does lurk dangerously near the bottom of the barrel.

If I'd only known that this was the third in a series when I picked it up, I might have held back until I'd had the chance to study the first two instalments in some depth and subsequently come into Scarecrow Gone Wild fully prepared to appreciate all it had to offer. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson from the whole Kickboxer 4 farce (who is this feckless boy-child? Where's Jean-Claude? Why is Tong Po half his previous size?) - but no. Ah well, not to worry - at the end of the day I can safely say its charms weren't entirely lost on me.

In spite of several dull stretches as the film tries to make the lives of its mouth-breathing teenage sickle-fodder seem deep and involving, SGW is ultimately brimming over with so many top-quality "what the..." moments that it's impossible not to have fun with the damn thing. The Scarecrow drives! The Scarecrow hits the waves! The Scarecrow inexplicably gains the power of electrocution! The Scarecrow's head appears to be made of cast iron when someone clouts him with a fire extinguisher! It's all good stuff. And I'd never even heard of Ken Shamrock before this, but now I think he should be in every film ever made (alongside Christopher Lambert and Steven Seagal).

What's particularly endearing about Scarecrow Gone Wild is that everybody involved plays it as if they've been told it's some kind of intense art-house drama, although we do get the occasional flash of momentary self-awareness (the "watch out for the homicidal scarecrow" line near the end comes to mind). All in all, definitely one to remember, and roll on 10,001 Scarecrows... I think.