'Scarecrows' (1988) - William Wesley.

This exciting, independently financed 80s horror gem might well have slipped into undeserved obscurity like many other quick-buck hack-fests made during VHS horror boom, but writer/director, William Wesley clearly had ambition to create more than just another generic, identi-kill slasher. Vividly renewed on Blu-ray, the evilly atmospheric, riotously entertaining ‘Scarecrows’ has multiple idiosyncrasies that make it stand decapitated heads, and gored shoulders above the dully derivative terror throng of stupefyingly stab-happy, copycat crappy, dismally dull Halloween facsimiles. 

Completing a daring heist on a military base, our swarthy,quarrelsome, persistently perspiring protagonists hijack a private charter plane, hoping it will swiftly transport them and the plentiful loot to secure vectors far beyond the long eyes of the law. Unfortunately, the splatter movie fates have conspired to thwart our surprisingly personable, colourfully wise-cracking outlaw’s pragmatic plan! 

Post mid-flight calamity the gun-toting thieves find themselves anxiously dispersed, sans contraband, stumbling blindly on a doom-laden exodus through an oppressively crepuscular,uncommonly unnerving corn field! Increasingly discombobulated, our mercenary misfits nervily converge upon an isolated, apparently abandoned Hunter’s Cabin. Eerily encircled by ominous, shadow-lurking scarecrows actively wishing them considerable ill, after one of the heavily armed group fails to return from the terror-haunted field, the sinister, Stephen King-esque shizz really begins to shit the fan!

Scarecrows abounds excitingly with vividly drawn characters, quality banter, and monstrously effective, pant-wettingly malicious monsters, gorily perpetrating unspeakably horrible deaths! Especially noteworthy is the remarkably atmospheric photography by, Peter ‘Evil Dead II’ Deming, and Terry Plumieri's deliciously doomy electronic score. William Wesley’s sinister, shock-stuffed ‘Scarecrows’ is a thrillingly gruesome, top tier, dynamically made and spectacularly photographed 80s horror classic. With memorably macabre kills, and a palpable menace, 'Scarecrows' deserves to be raised much higher up in the horror pantheon. Remember....All trespassers will be violated’.

 

‘Some 80s slashers can’t hack it any more, ‘Scarecrows’ is the scream of the crop!’