By Ashton Howard
Tubi is a great place for a night of free flicks and I always try to keep on track of what’s new and what’s causing a stir. I watch Tubi films that people may pitch at me and I’m seeing all sorts of press for this film, RISE OF THE SCARECROWS: HELL ON EARTH, a horror movie from writer/director, Geno McGahee. He made another scarecrow movie many years back with a similar name and I ended up watching them in reverse order.
The story is about a writer named “Mitch” played by Eric Michaelian. His mother died and he goes home to see his dad, Ben (Brent Northup), and meets up with Stacy (Lorrie Bacon), a woman that brings groceries to the dad. All seems normal but Mitch starts finding paintings of scarecrows and things go a little crazy.
Mitch and Stacy become a couple and meet up with some campers in the woods and they get along enough to meet up later on to party. Dan (Matt Hebert), Sharon (Sharon Marr), Jake (Tom Hebert), Randy (Brandon Macey) and Steph (Jesse Delta Ariel Waegelein-Hall) make up the campers and we soon begin seeing scarecrows.
I got to give credit to Nathaniel Cook for his portrayal of the sheriff in this. I really enjoyed his performance in this film. He was a good addition and opposition to the good guys.
This is a slasher film from the eighties and it was self-aware. It knew what it wanted to be. There was a nice build up in the first half that led to a lot of bloodshed and scarecrow attacks in the second half. I read some of the press and they said that this was a Friday the 13th – like film and it was. If you like the Friday the 13th movies, you will probably like this.
RISE OF THE SCARECROWS: HELL ON EARTH is FRIDAY THE 13TH part XI. I enjoyed the film and hope that they make another one of these with more gore and more scarecrows. They stole the show when they were on the screen slashing the campers to pieces.
