Scarecrow Review
Written by: DerbyDemon
To the entire cast and crew of "Mortuary"--as well as Tobe Hooper--I apologize. I apologize PROFUSELY. When I reviewed that movie, I said that it defined "bad" in cinema. Boy, was I wrong, because I happened to catch this "masterpiece" on SciFi last night. So, I dug into the local archives and found two reviews on "Scarecrow". Well, here's the third...
"Scarecrow, which was originally released in 2002, is a story about a 35-year old high school boy (Lester Dwervick) nobody likes, whose mother is the local town whore, who both live in a white-trash trailer park (don't go to pieces guys; not all trailer parks are like that; I know), which just happens to back up to a ...cornfield?! Cornfields AND palm trees--who knew? Lester (played by Tim Young) is picked on by everyone in high school--teachers and students alike. Mrs. Morton, one of his teachers, loves to demoralize him by screaming his deficiencies aloud in class. What a sweetie. So how does Lester cope? Well, he draws a lot of crows and flowers (in black and white). If Lester likes you, he'll draw you a purty little picture of...crows...
Lester comes home one night (after being humiliated at the local watering hole, the French Bulldog) and ...draws some more crows. However, the true arteest that he is, his mind set is interrupted by his mom and her boyfriend, neither of whom can act their way out of a paper bag, when they fall drunkenly into his room while he's drawing...more crows. Oh, just for the record, mom looks about 15 years YOUNGER than sonny-boy, but I digress. Well, drunken boyfriend smashes a picture of ...crows...that Lester had drawn and was going to give to Judy Patterson, the local sheriff's daughter (played by Tiffany Shepis). That makes Lester SO mad that he calls the boyfriend a name. (Fan me; I feel faint). Boyfriend chases Lester out into the cornfield and lays on top of him and shakes him with one hand until he dies. Lester's soul then magically goes into the scarecrow and the pictures of the crows end.
Scarecrow (played by Todd Rex) must have been a American Olympic Team wannabe because he sure can do back hand-springs and cartwheels--for no apparent reason. Anyway, he kills just about everybody and basically runs amok amongst the rows of corn. I won't ruin the ending; you won't be around to see it anyway.
"Scarecrow's" claim to fame is that it was shot in only eight days! I find that completely unbelievable as anyone with any sense knows that this time of cinema verte takes at least...9 days to shoot. It was "directed" by Emmanuel Itier, who needs to return to France and do a remake of any Jerry Lewis movie. He'd bring down the house, I'm sure. The rest of his crew needs to go with him. Mr. Itier also helps write this gem, along with Bill Cunningham, Jason White, and Stephan Wozniak--all writers extraordinaire. Here's just a sampling of how the words flowed from their pencils: Sheriff to one of the girls that saw the Scarecrow kill her boyfriend: "are you sure miss. I mean, it's always dark out here at night, and you could have just imagined it." Oh, if I were wearing pearls, I'd be clutching them.
Scarecrow's run time is 86 minutes and it's rated R--for ridiculous.