Scarecrow (2013) (TV) Directed by Sheldon Wilson

To be honest, I have never had anything against the movies made exclusively for the SyFy channel. Even the absolutely terrible ones are still sort of fun to watch, in a weird kind of way. And really, not every movie that plays on the SyFy channel is a terrible one, such as this one also shows.

This clearly isn't a great movie but it at least entertains way more than just the average modern genre flick. While this never becomes a great movie, I still never hated or regretted watching it. It's well paced and very straightforward, which means that it never bores.

It's simplicity may bother some people but in in this case believe that it's something the movie really benefited from. It doesn't waste any time on developing characters that we know are going to die soon anyway and it doesn't ever really elaborate on anything at all, through which the movie avoids falling into genre trappings and become a silly and needlessly complicated one, with far too many distractions and pointless side-plots in it. This movie basically has just one main story and that is it! It sticks to its main story at all times, which was something I really liked about this movie.

It's still doing a very poor job handling all of its horror though. There is never a good build up to anything and also never any sense of true danger or fear, even though the scarecrow character is a pretty awesome killer in this. Scarecrows are always scary anyway and it's actually amazing that there aren't really all that many horror movies involving scarecrows out there. Normally it's never a good thing when a movie uses CGI effects for its monster but in this case it actually adds to the overall creepiness of the character. He besides has a great look, that reminded me of Dr. Freudstein, from "Quella villa accanto al cimitero". I know, a pretty obscure horror reference but I wouldn't be surprised if the film-makers of this movie had seen that 1981 Lucio Fulci movie as well.

It's not a great movie by any means but I still consider it to be a watchable enough one, due to the fact that it never bores and never becomes a terrible one with anything. Oh yes and Lacey Chabert in it, so enough said.

5/10

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