Psycho Scarecrow (1996) — Triskaidekafiles

PSYCHO SCARECROW

WRITERS: Screenplay by Octacio Medieros, James Cullen, Alex Boon
Story by Octavio Medieros

DIRECTOR: Steve Galler

STARRING: Doug Miller as Eric
Tracey Rankin as Sheila
Lee Ann Simms as Karn
Richard Lee as Spider
Michael Upmalis as Floyd
Joe Parro as Jones
Tim Vince as Hammond

QUICK CUT: A group of friends head out for a weekend party, but the cops show up to ruin the fun.

THE MORGUE

Sheila - A young woman who is friendly and nice, and goes out of her way to give an outsider a chance with the group.

Eric - An asshole. No, seriously, that’s his character.

Floyd - A nerdy guy who is friendly and a bit socially awkward, and constantly gets on Eric’s bad side because of it. He’s got a thing for Sheila, and she knows it, but tries to make space for him.

Jones and Hammond - A pair of cops investigating the movie. Jones is a young up and comer who is fed up with how hammered the police are, and just wants to do his job, not cut corners, and actually do some good. Hammond is an older cop who has had all of that beaten out of him.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy Halloween, Triskelions! What would a spooky season be without a movie with a killer scarecrow? And this year, he's a PSYCHO Scarecrow.

The movie opens upon a homeless man scouring the back alley trash cans for a bite to eat, but he finds a mirror instead, and gets ready to do a few lines of coke.

A woman comes rising up out of the mirror and...OH it was actually falling down towards it, that makes SO much more sense. On the one hand, this was a long walk for that visual setup, on the other hand, it is SO worth it.

Is that cocaine?? I’ll be right dooooooown!

Detectives Jones and Hammond show up to investigate the suicide, and after poking around her apartment for a bit, Hammond finds a tape recorder, and plays back the girl's final words, which is basically her narrating the entire movie.

Also, I only found this out after the fact, because the movie never mentions it, but the younger cops full name is RICK Jones, and just insert your own joke about the perennial Marvel sidekick.

Now, I don't KNOW if these cop scenes were added to the movie late in the game to fill out the run time, but this setup sure feels like it.

This heads us into the actual plot, with holy clunky exposition, Batman. Who is she reordering this for, and why is she making sure to explain who every person is and their relationships?

Get in loser, we’re going trick or treating.

Our canon fodder for the movie is on their way to a house in the middle of nowhere to party, and I have to assume they'll be meeting up with the crew from Savage Harvest. They drive down decreasingly roadlike roads, until the car gives up and tries to save them from the movie, and stalls out.

Floyd makes the suggestion to walk the short way to the farmhouse, and worry about the car in the morning. Eric thinks that's a terrible idea, so he suggests they walk the short way to the farmhouse, and worry about the car in the morning. And that is an instant way to show your main character is a dick.

The clunky exposition continues, in stereo! as they walk through a cornfield to get to the farmhouse, and Floyd supposedly tells them about a Native curse upon the land. But we don't really hear that, because Sheila's recorded voiceover reiterates it to us.

After One Tree Hill ended, Mouth put on a few extra pounds.

We briefly say hi to what will become our titular psycho scarecrow, but he seems pretty chill at the moment. But then the gang reaches the farmhouse, and settle in for a bit of the usual partying in these sorts of movies.

Thankfully, the movie does break this all stop action with cutting back to the present day and the cops. The narrative structure of this movie might be weird, but it does help keep things moving along, at least. It is a way to get past the usual montage of just hanging out and chattering.

We could have easily had a pair of cops who are just here to move the story along with the tape recorder, but I really like that the movie takes the time to give them moments, and flesh out their characters. Most notably, Jones is frustrated with his work, and just once, would like to see a case through and do some good.

Back at the farm, Eric and Karn, yes her name is Karn, go for a walk in the night, as the other three hang out by the campfire. And again, Floyd gets ready to tell us a ghost story, and instead we have to listen to Sheila talk over it.

Floyd wanders off to go take a piss, and finds the lovers making out. He takes a few Polaroids, and as Karn describes it once they head back to the campfire, "Eric and Floyd got into a fight". Yeah, sure, if you call "Eric beats Floyd senseless into the dirt so hard he folds like a deck chair" a fight, I guess. Floyd did not throw a single punch. I don’t think he even knew what was going on, before it was over.

Sheila hears this, and she can't leave him out here alone in the dark. So she goes searching for him, dragging the rest along for the plot.

They make their way down an incline, and finds Floyd's corpse. Eric says they are not calling the cops, because he knows he killed a guy, and he vows the secret will die with them.

Sheila doesn't want to leave him there, saying he's their friend, and I love Eric just bluntly correcting her with nooo, he was YOUR friend, I hated him. As evidenced by the murder.

They drag the body off into the cornfield, and hide him inside the scarecrow, so he won't be found for quite some time. Man, if I had a nickel for every time I've seen a movie where someone was accidentally murdered and hidden inside a scarecrow, I would have a surprising number of nickels.

Spider wants to know what they're gonna do about covering up his head, and Eric sends him back to the pumpkins they passed, to try and find one big enough. This seems like way more work than necessary, but fine.

Once that's done, they head back to the car, but oh right, it won't start. Eric figures out it's the battery, and he and Karn head back to the farm to raid the vehicles for one. Okay, I don't know cars, so someone correct me if I'm off base here, but let's say they find a battery that's first of all not dead, aren't those things all very specific to cars and makes and models, so just finding out that fits YOUR SPECIFIC CAR is a longshot, at best?

Maybe the way your car is burning oil is the problem, dude.

Also, when Eric sees the car won't run, he gets super pissed, rips it out, and hurls it off into the field. He's uh, a great guy, huh?

While Eric hunts for more power, Karn remembers they forgot Spider's guitar, and they don't want to leave any evidence. Not to mention those things are hella expensive. So they split up even further, so she can go get it.

And since we're about halfway through the movie, it's time for Floyd to come back from the dead because of the curse, and start killing Eric and probably someone else.

When Floyd comes back to life, the movie tries to give him an iconic look, by having a face suddenly appear on the pumpkin covering his head. And I don't mean like, a jack o'lantern style carving, but a more normal human like face molded into the gourd. It looks ridiculous.

He pulls the stick out of his ass, finds an axe, and murders Karn in the cornfield, where she'll eventually be found.

Sheila gets bored sitting in the car and waiting, and wants to go looking for her friends, and Eric. Spider warns her "there's a corpse out there!", and sure, but under normal circumstances, they're not going to be causing you any problems.

This is the most well lit abandoned farm I’ve ever seen.

Eric gives up searching for his girlfriend after five seconds, so Sheila can find her body, and heads back to the car to replace the battery.

So, now we have everyone wandering around looking for everyone else, and even a dead body or two looking for people

While doing all this looking, the Floyd o'Lantern eventually pops up around a corner, and kills Spider. We hardly knew him. No, literally, we like, hardly knew him.

Sheila finds the body, screams around the farm a bit in hysterics, and that at least gets Eric's attention, so he can show up and yell at her.

He thinks she's lying, and threatens her if she's not serious, but oh, she's serious like a pumpkin allergy. They go to check out the dead bodies, and run straight into Merv Pumpkinfloyd.

But instead of catching them, we jump back to the cops for a bit to recap what we just saw. Hammond's the older, beaten down, world weary cop, and he does point out that this story does sound particularly unbelievable.

Oh, I see you guys are busy. I’ll come back later…

Hammond agrees to keep listening to the tape, but he's at least gonna fast forward through the boring parts, and oh, I wish I could join you.

The plot skips ahead to Eric and Sheila being back in the city, for an unspecified amount of time, and STILL being hunted as Floyd Takes Manhattan.

Sheila and Eric decided to hide out in a warehouse to wrap up the story, and this continues to feel like "added on after the fact".

That's not a scarecrow, that's a LEGO minifig that came to life, and is about to make it everyone's problem.

As an aside, there are shots of the creature where you can see the mouth moving, so that's not just some giant pumpkin helmet they stuck over some guy's head, but a legit effect of some sort.

To get away from their pursuer, they steal the truck of some poor random idiot who wandered into the plot.

But surprise, Jack Floyd'Lantern is in the back of the truck, and he chases them some more.

Meanwhile, Jones gets a call from dispatch, they ID'd the body, and she had a ton of antidepressants in her. That's enough for Hammond, case closed, he says his eight year old niece could come up with a better story, and hey. You said it, not me.

But we get back to the tape, and uh, somehow they had escaped the scarecrow, drove back to the city, and this tacked on ending has them now run...all the way back to some rural farmlands?

Eric gets chased into an abandoned house, running around some more, and shoots at the creature a few times, but of course that doesn't stop him.

So we follow Eric as he tries to survive in the farmhouse, he gets backed into a closet, and Floyd goes all Jack Torrance on the door.

Eric has a book of matches with him though, flings a lit one at his assailant, and the guy goes up like...well, like he's made of fucking straw.

Mmm, roasted pumpkin seeds.

As Floyd flails around, he breaks a gas line, causing the whole place to go up in flames, and explode for good measure.

We cut back to the cops, who again relate what we just saw about the scarecrow being shot, and burning down the house and whoa whoa hey wait whoa. How did Sheila know about the gun, and the fire, to record it on the tape?

Did Eric tell her? Does that mean Eric survives? OUT OF ALL THE PEOPLE TO SURVIVE THE MOVIE, ERIC IS OUR FINAL GIRL?? What bullshittery is this?!

The last bit on the tape is Sheila answering her door, thinking it's Eric, and the sounds of her screaming as she goes over the ledge. Which...did she even have TIME to hear about what happened? When would she even get the chance??

We end with Jones finding some bits of straw, so he's convinced this wasn't a suicide, and uh...well, THIS.

So to recap, the worst most shittiest person in the movie has survived, the monster isn't dead, and the cops are still investigating. This is a complete and utter non-conclusion. Were they hoping for a sequel, hunting down Eric, and the cops on the monster’s heels?

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s kinda rough, and overly lit, but it’s on the bearable side.

Audio: Not great, but not terrible, either.

Sound Bite: “You're a sick bastard." "It's a sick world, I'm just keeping pace."

Body Count: Not much here, what with such a small cast, and I’m doubly annoyed that the one character that should die did not.

1 - A little over three minutes in, and Sheila falls to her death.
2 - Floyd is found dead after a nasty spill.
3 - Karn gets killed off screen by Floyd O'Lantern
4 - Scarefloyd squashed Spider next

Best Corpse: I guess the only real choice is Spider.

Blood Type - D+: There’s quite a bit of blood, but every few effects, since it’s all kinda after the fact. And the less said about the one big effect, the mask, the better.

Sex Appeal: None to be had

Drink Up! Every time they cut back to the cops

Movie Review: I liked this quite a bit, although grading on a curve. I went in with zero expectations, and it was entertaining enough. The structure is weird though, although they make it work better than most, even with clunky exposition. The characters are kinda thin, except the cops, and maybe Eric. But it has a solid energy about it, and for a movie made on no budget in the mid 90s, it’s competent enough. It’s pretty light on story though, and not a lot of characters to kill. Even with the cops, it’s surprising they got almost 90 minutes of a movie. Two out of five pumpkinheads.

Entertainment Value: The highlight here is Eric being unable to be a sympathetic person, even for a second. You’re just waiting to see what his next outburst will be. The action, when it happens, isn’t half bad, and while this isn’t gonna wow anyone, it’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s a nice little obscuriosity that’s worth seeking out for fans of the genre, just to see something they might not have. Three out of five car batteries.