Scarecrows




Released: 1988

MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Zombie

Nuts and Bolts: Five paramilitary criminals steal 3.5 million dollars from the Federal Reserve. Although the crime goes off without a hitch, their escape plan hits a snag when they parachute into a wooded area filled with flesh chomping hungry zombie scarecrows!

Summary: Five ex military grunts hi-jack a cargo plane after stealing 3.5 million dollars from the Federal Reserve Bank at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. Included in the cast we have: Al the pilot, his top-heavy daughter Kellie, their dog Dax, as well as criminals Bert, Curry, Jack, Corbin and Roxanne. The only ones we’re missing are Astro and his boy Elroy. However, this group quickly shows us that there’s no such thing as honor amongst thieves. Bert decides that he doesn’t want to share any of the cash with the others, so he grabs the strongbox and parachutes out of the airplane. Curry, Jack and Corbin jump out after him leaving Roxanne to watch over Al and Kellie as they land the plane.

Bert lands in a tree in the middle of a thick forest. He cuts himself down and he can hear his former cohorts screaming at him over their headsets. But the money landed elsewhere and Bert needs to kick up the pace if he hopes to recover it before the others come after him. After wandering through the woods he comes upon the old Fowler farmhouse. There’s an old ass piece of shit truck outside that Bert takes notice of. Wonder upon wonders…it actually fucking works! Bert starts the pickup and begins blazing through the woods. But the Semper-Fi patrol is not the only one watching Bert. Four very menacing looking Scarecrows hang upon their posts leveling a wary eye towards Bert’s direction.

Bert finds the money, but now he has a second problem. The truck craps out! Big surprise. He pops the hood only to discover that the thing has NO FUCKING ENGINE! Ultra weird eh? As Bert tries to figure out how the hell he’s going to get away, one of the Scarecrows arrives and stabs him through the stomach. Bye Bert.

The plane lands and the group go to the farmhouse. Al and the pooch stay with the plane in case they need to make a quick get-away. But they take Kellie with them just so Al won’t abandon them. The thieves wander about looking for Bert but with no avail. Jack bitches about losing his harmonica and goes up to the roof to keep watch. Looking through his infrared goggles, Jack becomes pretty freaked out by all of the Scarecrows hanging about the fields. Roxanne and Corbin keep Kellie at the house while team-leader Curry and Jack search the woods for Bert. The rest of the group find an old black and white photograph inside the house depicting a father and his two sons. However, evidence would suggest that no on has lived in this house for some time.

Back at the plane, Al feels like he heard his daughter screaming his name. He leaves the plane to investigate and is done in by one of the big-ass Scarecrows.

Jack and Curry come upon Bert’s parachute. They pull the rigging down from the trees in case Bert left any money in there. Slicing open the pack, a fountain of blood pours down on Curry. The two extremely pissed off men return to the Fowler house.

Before long, Bert appears inside the farmhouse! The thieves are elated as well as pissed off. They take turns beating the shit out of Bert but no matter how hard they pummel him, Bert doesn’t give up the location of the money. Bert’s shirt rips open and they see that his body has been sliced open and re-sewn shut. Bert’s a ZOMBIE! Bert begins beating the shit out of Curry and he doesn’t stop until Corbin cuts his hand and head off with a machete. To make things even weirder, they discover that Bert has been turned into a walking Scarecrow stuffed with money. They take as much money as they can out of Bert’s corpse and then shove his remains into a refrigerator.

During the nonsense with Bert, Kellie makes her escape. While running through the woods she finds her father Al strapped up to a wooden post. He is very clearly dead. Stricken with grief, Kellie feels as if she has little choice but to return to the house. The rest of the group decides to take what money they can and leave as soon as possible.

But Jack is still out in the woods somewhere. He finds (of all things) his damned fucking harmonica, which he’s been bitching about for the past hour. Right after he finds his harmonica, two Scarecrows attack him. Jack’s hand is cut off and he is stabbed through the head with a spear. Curry races out to try and save him and he too is attacked by a Scarecrow. He keeps them back with a flurry of gunfire before finally retreating back to the house. The Scarecrows take Jack’s severed hand and sew onto the withered stump of a handless Scarecrow.

Curry is now a few lunatics short of an Asylum. He just won’t accept the fact that Jack is dead. He keeps talking to him over his headset as if he were still talking to him. Roxanne, Corbin and Kellie decide that Curry is out of his tree and that it is time for them to get the hell out town.

Of course the group aren’t three feet into the woods when they decide to split up. Kellie thinks she hears her dog barking and goes chasing after it. Roxanne finds a bunch of money scattered across the ground and begins collecting it. But greed is not this bitch’s best friend as a Scarecrow puts a spear through her back.

Back at the Fowler house, Jack returns but now he is a Scarecrow. He goes after Curry but the latter backs his way into a back room. Curry finds the remains of Bert still trying to attack him. In the midst of flurrying about, Jack’s zombie gets into the room and stabs Curry.

Meanwhile, a Scarecrow attacks Kellie but Corbin shoots it away from her. The two make it back to the airplane and take off. While taking off we discover that Dad is now a Scarecrow and is on the plane. He attacks Corbin and manages to get up to the cockpit to stab Kellie. Corbin manages to find a live grenade however and he tackles the zombified Al. Holding him close to his body, he releases the pin from the grenade and both men explode. Kellie limps the plane to an airfield in San Diego while Dax the pooch licks up the bloody chunks of Al and Corbin.

Apparently, as they land the dog is found to be rabidly insane from eating the zombie flesh.

Acting/Dialogue: The acting isn’t all that great here but what do you really expect. The only one who really does a halfway decent job is Ted Vernon as Curry. The rest of the cast pretty much does that ‘first-time-acting-gig-gotta-really-accentuate-my-part’ type of style. The dialogue however is really shitty. Pretty amateurish stuff. But let’s be real here folks. We’re NOT watching this flick expecting to see Adam West quality performances now are we.

Gore: This is a pretty good flick for gore. We see a decapitation as well as several scenes involving dismembered body parts. The scene where Corbin and Curry are pulling blood-soaked hundred dollar bills out of Bert’s headless chest is pretty fucking cool. Aside from that, all the gore is pretty much relegated to stab wounds.

Guilty Pleasures: NONE! We have two attractive females running around and not so much as a hint of a butt cheek. What a rip!

The Good: This is a pretty fucking cool movie! This is just the type of brainless exploitive cheese dick shit that one would expect from a Day of the Dead type of movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The Scarecrows REALLY make this film. They are some freaky looking sonsabitches! The film more or less suggests that three of the four Scarecrows are actually the Fowler family members. Every time a Scarecrow is getting ready to do someone in, we get an establishing shot of the family photo. This is pretty much the only information that lets us know that it is the Fowlers that are running around zombified. (That and the fact that they are listed in the credits.)

The Scarecrows also seem to have a very strange power they use in order to bait their prey. Apparently they can produce sounds that convince others that they are hearing their friends or loved ones. This is done several times throughout the flick. The pilot Al thinks he hears his daughter calling out to him, when we all know that Kellie is still back at the farmhouse. Al is killed soon after. After Jack is killed, we can still hear the sounds of his harmonica trailing along the winds. VERY cool scene. Kellie leaves Corbin when she thinks she hears Daxy barking. We come to find out that Dax is still on the plane.

There are a couple of interesting gore scenes as well. One of the best parts is watching Curry scooping money out of Bert’s head. I’m sorry, but that kind of thing just tickles me. Another funny moment involving Bert takes place shortly before his height reduction. While fighting against the thugs the Zombie-Bert grabs Corbin by the mouth. Corbin reflexively bites down chopping Bert’s fingers off. Corbin falls onto the porch gagging as he spits up little finger chunks. Before Roxanne gets stabbed through the back she suffers another injury as well. Scrambling about on the ground picking up money, a pitchfork comes down pinning her hand to the ground. She is forced to rip her hand free in order to escape. (Goes to show you how sharp THIS bitch is. Why didn’t she just use her other hand to pull the pitchfork out? Idiot.)

I also like the end where we see the pooch licking up the bloody chunks of Al’s spleen. We don’t see the bit where the dog goes bonkers, but we hear it over a radio broadcast during the end credit sequence.

I like the little WORZ radio bits as well. It helps flesh out the tale a bit and it’s a nice tip of the hat to the style used by George Romero in his Night of the Living Dead films.

The Bad: This movie doesn’t provide a back-story. We have no idea how the Fowlers are turned into zombies or why. And why are they killing the money thieves? That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. It’s not for the money as they seem to pretty much only use that for stuffing. (I would hate to see their Thanksgiving Day turkeys) The only death that kind of makes sense is Jack’s. They needed the parts.

This movie is also exceedingly dark. The entire thing takes place at night and most of the shots are shown through infrared goggles. Some cheap lighting effects could have really gone a long way here.

I’ve already mentioned how bad the dialogue is, but they really take it to extremes in this. The bulk of the movie is spent between the actors exchanging angry banter over their headsets and swearing about how much they are going to fuck Bert up.

There’s also a really dumb scene where the captive Kellie tries sneaking up on Roxanne. This bitch is making more noise than a herd of groupies at a Backstreet Boys concert. It’s no wonder she failed to get the drop on Roxanne.

If you like films like Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead or Zombie then this movie is the ONE for you. Good and brainless with zero plotline and tons of cool looking ass-kicking zombie Scarecrows! A very fun flick that should not be taken seriously.

Great Lines:

“I wish I had my harmonica.”  --Jack says this at least twelve times from the time that he lands to the time that he dies.

“Hey Bert! We’re gonna hang ya like one of these Scarecrows and stuff ya full of crow shit!”  --Jack threatening Bert over the headset.

Overall Rating: 6 out of 10 severed heads. Good and stupid all at the same time. Life doesn’t get much better.
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