Scarecrows (Final Girl Film Club)

I had never heard of this movie until Stacie picked it as the Final Girl Film Club selection for March. I figured I would give Scarecrows a shot, hoping in that it sharing a vaguely similar plot to Dog Soldiers that it would turn out to be a worthy predecessor. I was wrong. Scarecrows is one of those films where the small budget is a hindrance, and not something used to creatively work with. The scarecrows themselves are actually very well made and creepy looking, although when they attack, which is rare at first, then rapidly towards the last 30 minutes, it’s very anti-climactic. Gory and sometimes weird? Yes, sometimes off-the-charts weird, especially the indirect attacks and mindfucks. Scary? Eh, not so much.

The story centers around a group of Marines who have stolen $3.5 million and hijacked a cargo plane flown by a father and daughter. They are trying to hightail it to Mexico. One of the soldiers parachutes out of the plane with the money, and the others parachute out after him, except for the lone female Marine, who helps direct the search from air, then makes the pilot land, and she forces the daughter to go with her (the daughter is an interesting hostage, by the way: she just checks her hair in a compact mirror almost the entire time). They land in the middle of the woods. Bert, the money stealer, has already found an abandoned house, as well as an abandoned truck, and soon is the first to find the killer scarecrows.

These initial landings and searching for Bert are the roughest part of the movie to get through. It is basically a bunch of shouting and threats at Bert over walkie talkies or radio systems. We’re never really shown the other soldiers looking for Bert, just Bert walking around the house and the forest, as well as his apparent death. It doesn’t help that we hear Bert’s inner monologue as soon as he first lands in the woods up until his death – at first I thought he was talking to himself, but no, it’s an inner monologue. I would’ve been more comfortable with him just talking to himself. This scene repeats towards the end of the film too, just about whenever one or a few of the soldiers go out in the woods. It’s very frustrating and dull to watch.

It does not help that we’re not exactly told the origins of the scarecrows-zombies. We’re frequently shown a picture of three men on a wall in the house, and are told that they were the Fowler family (which if anything makes me think of the Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High books I used to read when I was a kid), but were they the scarecrows? If so, how did they become scarecrows? With the ability to turn people into zombies no less? Perhaps what I’m trying to say here is that with no character other than the daughter’s dog to like or latch onto (cos naturally, I’m going to cheer for the animal or pet in the film, especially if all the human characters are bland), knowing where the scarecrows originated from would’ve been way more interesting than listening to the Marines’ walkie talkies for perhaps 60 minutes of an 80 minute movie.

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