Scarecrow Slayer (2004)

You know how I said the original 'Scarecrow' was entertainingly bad? Yeah, this one was just....eurgh. In 'Scarecrow Slayer', Dave (Brett Erickson, a guy who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page) and his friend Karl (David Castro) try to steal a scarecrow as a fraternity prank. The farmer, Caleb (Played bizarrely by Tony Todd) sees them and, thinking it's the Scarecrow that killed his father thirty-five years before come back to life, shoots and kills Dave. Dave's soul transports into the Scarecrow and goes on a rampage, with his ultimate goal being to transfer his girlfriend Mary's (Nicole Kingston in her first major role debut) into another zombie. There will be spoilers in this, mainly because of a lot to moan at.

Now, this is not a direct sequel to 'Scarecrow'. It's a sequel, but it does not mention anything from the first film. Unless the film takes place thirty-five years after Lester's rampage, which means that since the first film takes place in 1987, this film takes place in the year 2022. And Lester killed the farmer (who let his cornfield wither into nothing) who bought it from the farmer in the first film, or the farmer from the first film changed skin colour and popped out a son.

I wouldn't be making a big deal out of this, but apparently this has happened before Lester. Heck, this is apparently so well known, Caleb is a well known expert on killer scarecrows (Though the world still mocks him) and Karl himself mentions it's frequent in Greek mythology. While I'm more of an Ancient Egyptian fan, I don't recall any killer scarecrows in Greek mythology. But I still decided to double check, and if you google Greek myths about scarecrows you'll come across this article from the Telegraph news outlet about the Eurozone crisis (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100017280/drachma-scarecrows-and-the-myths-of-greek-exit/). Oh, and some information about a Greek God who has a large penis, whose statues acted as scarecrows.

But the film still doesn't make sense. Lester at least had a reason to kill the whole town, Dave in this apparently thinks "Huh, I'm a scarecrow. Well, time to go a murdering". Caleb seems to suggest that there's a dominant scarecrow personality which takes over, which kind of makes sense with the previous film since Lester does struggle with the Scarecrow personality when he was about to kill his mother, but the killing spree Dave embarks on still makes no sense.

The dialogue in this was just stupid, horrendous, down right awful. One scene in particular jumps out. When Dave falls after climbing a fence (Because he apparently has trouble climbing over a two foot fence) his camera falls off his head. This apparently breaks it. The crew back at the fraternity, or rather the gadget guy, moans about how the visual on the camera, and says "It must be the rain". I had to rewind this bit a couple of times to make sure I heard it right. But no, he and others  distinctly say "rain". The reason why this doesn't make sense is simple; THERE'S NO RAIN. There's some thunder later, but no rain. It would have made sense if they said 'range', but no, 'rain' was apparently more appropriate. Then later when a cop is asked if a patient is alright, the cop replies "No. She's an inch away from dead", and yes, he does say a 'd' at the end of that line. Don't you mean "She's an inch away from death"? WHO WROTE THIS?

Bill Cunningham, David Michael Latt, and Joel Newman all have writing credits on IMDB. The opening credits say it was based on an idea by Cunningham, but the screenplay was written by the other two. So basically three people wrote this, and yet it has the worst use of grammar and words I have ever seen in film. It seems only fitting that this was the last thing Cunningham wrote, Newman took a six year hiatus to before writing the slightly better rated 'Thirst', and Latt went on to pen most of the Asylum films. And yes, this IS an Asylum production. But what can I expect when this film is set around a US marine training base where the students have access to all sorts of weaponry (They don't even lock the weapons away, except the bazooka(!) that's in the basement), which apparently has a fraternity on base.

You know how I said the acting in the previous film wasn't that good but hilarious. Well two years the acting is WORSE and NOT hilarious. Everyone is about the same standard as Roxanne Bina, and yes, like the previous film, this is a career killer! The careers for David Castro, Jessica Mattson, Scott Carson, and Steven Glinn all found their careers ended shortly after this film, while Brett Erickson and Brendan Aucoin found themselves suffering a three/seven year hiatus shortly after starring in this film. Steven Shcultz as Gavin really is the only actor who is actually pretty decent, though he is portrayed as a prick by the other characters, even though he is really the only sensible on in this film.

Heck, even Todd Rex, the only returning actor from the first film, stopped appearing in films three years and two productions after this film. In the first film, you could actually tell he had a blast playing the Scarecrow, in this one, he looks so bored. Okay we can't see his face beneath the mask, but you can tell by his movements in 'Scarecrow Slayer' that he was so bored, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had no clue what he was doing. And I don't even know what Tony Todd (Who was also surprisingly a producer on this) was doing.

I haven't even gone over the main character yet, who is the most infuriating character I've gone over on this blog since Alex from 'Battleship'! Firstly she's apparently stupid enough to walk behind a reversing car (Though in her defence the driver should have also seen her since she was looking out the rear window). Then there's a later scene where Mary tells Sheila (Jessica Mattson) and Gavin about seeing the scarecrow, though she initially only cares about getting some clothes and has a go at Gavin since it was his prank that got Dave killed. Because, you know, Gavin apparently knew that Caleb was going to shoot someone THAT night. She doesn't even think that her car keys are with her old clothes back at the hospital, so when she gets back to her car, she's left stranded! Then she goes to Caleb's house, despite knowing that he was at the hospital, and despite seeing him get torn apart by the Goddamn scarecrow! Then to top it all off, when she finds Karl, she mentions that she DOESN'T EVEN MISS DAVE. Your boyfriend hasn't even been dead for half a day yet, and you say you don't miss him?! You fu*king bitch! Then again I might be able to respect her if she wasn't dressed as a hooker! Then again, in her defence, she isn't the only stupid character in this.

And then the effects. Oh God the effects. Probably one of the first film's major strengths was the lack of effects, or rather they went with more, um, physical effects rather than CGI/green screen. The use of CGI and green screen in this is, I admit it, it's probably the only source of hilarity in this. You know, when 'Scarecrow' had a pregnant woman in it, they at least put a ball under her clothes to make her look pregnant, in this one, we apparently have the skinniest seven month pregnant woman ever. But hell, even the editing in this was God awful. There weren't any multiple cuts to the same shot, but this included car headlights being driven symmetrical on the screen, in the sky, or both.

I suppose the only real saving grace was the end, in which we see Karl get killed and become a second Scarecrow, before fighting the Dave Scarecrow. The Karl Scarecrow fighting the Dave Scarecrow was actually pretty well thought out, even though it is hindered by the fact that the half the night shots are tinted blue for some reason (They are already filming at night, why tint it blue any more?), and half of it is filmed in the dark so we can't see the fight scenes.

I can kind of see why the original 'Scarecrow' warranted a sequel, it was a film which was brilliant in its awfulness. But this is what they decided to do with it? A confusing plot, the worst dialogue I've ever heard in a film, bland characters, laughable effects, horrendous acting, bad editing, just, everything was terrible. To be honest, you might enjoy this film in a group over drinks, but apart from that, this film was just God awful. But guess what? Apparently this warranted a THIRD film.