DVD Review Double Feature: Scarecrow/Scarecrow Slayer

Every once in awhile you buy a disk and later look at it and wonder why you bought it in the first place. Then I smile and nod knowingly, it was cheap, and you hoped it would be worth it. Sometimes you get surprised with a gem, but more often you're left with something, well let's just say less then stellar, and every once in awhile you get a mixed bag. This double feature falls into the latter category. I remember when these disks first came out, I saw them sitting on the shelf practically screaming "BAD MOVIE!!" Yet I would still pick it up and look at the back, then slowly put it back. One day I found the two disks combined together as the double feature and priced at less than half of the single releases, I know a deal when I see one, and it made it's way to my hand, then to the register, and finally to the DVD player, which is where we are today. Are they worth watching? No. Is there anything to like about them? Yes. Where to begin...



Let's start at the logical beginning, Scarecrow. There is nothing particularly special about the plot. We follow young Lester, as he is picked on and ridiculed by everyone from the guys and girls at school, his mother, her drunk boyfriend, until one day he is defended by Judy, one of his classmates. This of course leads to an obsession and a misunderstanding, then Lester goes over the edge and attacks his mother's boyfriend, who inadvertently kills the boy. The problem is that Lester dies in a field with a haunted scarecrow, this is never explained, and Lester's soul is transferred into the body of the scarecrow. The Scarecrow then goes on a killing spree, taking out all those that were mean to him when he was alive with some scythes and the obligatory witticism. Veterans of this genre know how this will play out, so enough of the plot.

This is clearly a low budget production, marked by bad acting, bad effects, and an awful script. Despite all of that, I found myself suckered into actually enjoying this very bad film. It defies all logic, has a story that makes no sense and doesn't make any attempt at explaining itself. What I thought was interesting about it is that much of it takes place in daylight, including scenes of the scarecrow attacks. Usually in these types of films they try to shroud the killer in darkness, generally to disguise the cheap costume, and generally dark heightens the fright. On the plus side of that, and possibly the best part of the film, the costume design. I loved the look of the Scarecrow design, the ragged clothing, the stitched up face, great.

What better way to follow up that, than with the flipside of the disk, Scarecrow Slayer. Now, one would think that this would be a sequel, and it is, sort of. The only connection to the first is the field, the rest is completely new, including the new attempt at creating a mythology. This one does take a step up , well any step, in star power with a role played by the Candyman himself, Tony Todd, who is also an executive producer.

The story this time around has Tony Todd as a guardian, of sorts, of the cornfield containing the scarecrow, who had killed his father when he was young. One night, a hazing stunt has a couple kids attempt to steal the straw man, when one is mistakenly killed by Todd. This boy inhabits the scarecrow who goes on a killing spree in an attempt to get close to his would be girlfriend. This is probably the worse of the two, employing some really bad cg effects and even less of a coherent plot than the first. I particularly liked frat that was made up of would be marines, who seem to be very well armed.

Video. Video quality is awful. It is presented in a ratio of 1.33:1 which appears to be the intended aspect, I tried zooming it to 1.85:1 and discovered chopped off heads. The quality is washed out and soft and just not very pretty to look at. I chalk it up to the low budget nature of the project. This applies to both movies.

Audio. Dolby Digital 2.0 is what we get here, it does the job, but much like the video is pretty poor. The volume goes up and down, and much of the dialog sounds like it was laid on top of anything giving it an awful detached feeling to it.

Extras. There are trailers for the films, plus a couple other York Entertainment releases, plus a Making of Documentary for each of the films.
-Scarecrow: This runs for about 20 minutes and consists of a lot of back slapping. It is rather funny how the director feels he is making this high art film, name dropping many other, superior, horror directors. The cast seemed to have fun making it. The most interesting thing was that they shot it in a total of 9 days. It's a fun watch, once.
-Scarecrow Slayer: This runs for almost 10 minutes, and is much the same as the the other, decent enough to watch once.

Bottomline. This only advised to those who like bad/low budget horror, you know who you are. I could not in my right mind recommend these to anybody else. The best part is the scarecrow design which is excellent. You may also like things like the bad dialog, corny kill lines, the magically appearing blades, and other such nonsense. I liked them for a strange, unfounded reason.

Not Recommended. (unless you're a fan of bad horror)

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