Reviewed by Geno McGahee
“Guns don’t work!”—Curry (Michael David Simms)
There are many scarecrow movies, but not many good ones. This is an outstanding flick that stands above all other scarecrow related movies. You have five criminals hijacking an airplane after robbing the payroll at Camp Pendleton, and demanding to be flown to Mexico. Unfortunately, one of their members, Bert (B.J. Turner), decides that the 3.5 million dollars wasn’t enough to spread around and jumps out of the plane with the money. He lands in a field and attempts to kill everyone but fails, and now they have landed the plane and are on his tail, looking for the money and revenge.
There are two hostages, a pilot and his daughter. The dad doesn’t do too well, and the girl is forced along for the search for Bert. As they walk around they notice that there are a lot of scarecrows hanging and an old farmhouse, apparently abandoned. The group is completely puzzled by this, but their hunt for money blinds them to the strangeness of the scarecrows.
Curry (Michael David Simms), the leader of this group, and the most over dramatic and entertaining of the characters begins to put pieces of the puzzle together as things begin to happen. Bert returns at one point and is fighting mad. It takes all of the other members just to stop him and when they end up killing him, they discover that he has been gutted and stuffed with money. He was stuffed like a scarecrow, and now it is obvious that there is something very wrong. Pictures of the farmers that used to live there hanging on the wall are a creepy touch, and the scarecrows look outstanding. The entire look of this movie is creepy and well shot.
In one of the best scenes of the movie, Curry, after trying to kill one of the scarecrows with his gun, is now held up at the farmhouse, refusing to leave until daybreak. When questioned he screams: “Guns don’t work!” He then begins to think aloud about the gunfight that they had with the military police and how strange it was that they were seemingly untouchable. They fired and fired and the military police just kept falling down. Curry is so dramatic when he theorizes that they did not make it out of that gunfight and that they are in hell.
This is such an original movie and the fact that it is shot at the night makes it that much better. There is no break. You are there for one terrifying night with these hijackers and the innocent daughter of the pilot that shouldn’t be there to begin with. There isn’t anything that I can say negatively about this movie. It is fantastic.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8/10. Scarecrows + over dramatic lines = success.