Five criminals stage a daring, violent robbery of an army payroll at a camp named Pendleton, and abduct a father and daughter to fly them to safety. However, the mastermind of the robbery decides to make off with the proceeds and parachutes down into a remote rural area. Naturally, his enraged comrades follow. However, what they don't expect is the nearby farm is populated with scarecrows - stealthy, sneaky, sadistic zombie scarecrows who decimate the gang one lowlife at a time.
I know that that sounds pretty silly, but give director William Wesley and crew credit for handling this premise better than you'd think. They never go the purely cheesy route, largely staying away from blatant humour (although there are some amusing, silly gags near the end) and any sort of camp. What they do instead is milk the atmosphere for all that's it worth, and when it comes down to that aspect of the movie, it's very well done.
They also make the interesting move of never truly explaining things, in terms of how these scarecrows could come to be that way. The scarecrows are genuinely ugly and ferocious, and there aren't too many shots of the things shambling around, which would undermine their effectiveness. And speaking of ferocity, the gore in this movie is extremely enjoyable, as we get to see stabbings, decapitations, and the sight of a character who's had their innards removed to be replaced with the purloined money.
This is entertaining stuff here, that gets down to business right away and moves forward at a respectable pace. (If it weren't for a pretty slow end credits crawl, the running time would still come in around 80 minutes or so.) The characters are reasonably entertaining & the acting gets the job done; it's a hoot to see the character Curry (Michael David Simms) lose it as he realizes how screwed the whole bunch of them are. Ted Vernon, who also takes an executive producer credit, is good in the top billed role of Corbin; he looks tough and bad ass but is really a sensitive kind of guy, as he tries to look out for the young female captive Kellie (Victoria Christian, who is actually dubbed by Bambi Darro).
Lovers of indie horror, and the scarecrow sub genre, are sure to find this a pleasing enough movie that can claim to be legitimately spooky, and delivers a number of fine sequences as it plays out.
Seven out of 10.
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