This is How Movies Should Be Made

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

John Rollins (Norman Reedus) is under pressure with his failing family farm. He has his wife Mary (Heather Stephens), daughter Lindsey (Claire Holt) and son Michael (Laurence Belcher). His farm is over-run with crows. He finds a creepy scarecrow in the barn to scare the crows. His son wants him to get rid of it. His new neighbor Jude Weatherby (Richard Riehle) convinces him to put it up. He hears voices. All the crows die. Sleazy banker George Chapman comes with an offer to buy him out. The broken water pump starts working again. The banker dies getting run over by a truck. There seems to be an evil possessing John. He grows more jealous of his wife's friend Tommy.It's questionable if this is related to the first movie. It's just as well. The first one wasn't any good. This one is a little better. It has some personal drama that's not relying on a cheap reveal. The scarecrow is an old cliché but that's not a problem. I do like Reedus but he doesn't have enough range to project a big creepy change. I like the story in this one slightly better than the original but the production quality is straight-to-video level.

The first rule of a prequel is that the audience in most cases know the story already, so you cannot change the story. The second rule is that you cannot change the ending. Because the audience knows this too. The third rule is that you have to make it really interesting because we as an audience already know the story and know exactly what to expect.This dumb prequel directed by a guy from my country, I'm ashamed to admit, breaks all of the rules mentioned above.First off all why didn't they get John Corbett from The Messengers to reprise his role instead of Norman Reedus who is not a very good actor?? Why call the prequel The Messengers 2 when there are no ghosts in this movie?? The messengers in the original was the ghosts of John Rollins dead family. The family that he killed. Clearly because he lost his mind when they were about to leave him.But this prequel completely ignores that fact. Instead they make it about a supernatural evil scarecrow that kills people. And in the end John saves his family and destroys the scarecrow and they live happily ever after.It's an insult. Had they made the scarecrow something John simply imagined and John being insane and being the real killer it might have been interesting. Instead we get a badly made CGI-scarecrow so the teen audience can get a little bit of gore and action in and a happy ending, even though it didn't end that way at all. And the writers apparently could not make up their minds as to whether John was simply insane or the scarecrow being alive.The worst part about this prequel is that it's not scary at all. The original was genuinely scary. This is just boring.

Some years ago, distribution company Ghost House Pictures acquired a screenplay written by Todd Farmer in order to make a movie about the supernatural experiences suffered by a family on a remote farm.However, when screenwriter Mark Wheaton joined to the project, he decided to substantially change the story and adjust it to the structures from Asian horror cinema.The result was the atrocious movie The Messengers.2 years after that movie, Ghost House Pictures decided to wheel out Farmer's screenplay to make a movie out of it and sell it as a prequel with the title Messengers 2: The Scarecrow.Needless to say, my expectations for this film were minimum...however, I ended up taking a nice surprise with it.It may not be an excellent film, but it is competent and it is hugely superior to The Messengers.Because of the trailers and title from the film, I expected Messengers 2: The Scarecrow to be an absurd "slasher" film with a scarecrow killing people.And, on some way, it was like that...but not on the way I expected to see.The emphasis from the movie is not on blood and deaths, but on the atmosphere of angst which generates the credible situation from the main characters.The alleged supernatural events keep their ambiguity until the end, making us to ask ourselves if there is any evil influence on the farm or if everything is due to the frail mental state from the main characters, exacerbated by their anguish and untrue future.I was surprised of finding those mature elements on a straight-to-DVD prequel.As for the cast, Heather Stephens makes a competent work, but Norman Reedus tends to exaggerate without noticing that a more subtle performance would have been more appropriate to the tone from the film.The screenplay is generally good, but the characters occasionally do stupid things, whose bad decisions make some things convenient.And the ending is not bad by itself, but it does not seem to totally suit in the context of the movie.As for the direction, Martin Barnewitz shows a good control of the minimalistic narrative, and he also made a competent work on the "jump" scenes.Finally, I liked to see the absolute absence of digital effects.If it was not for the unnecessary incursion in the horror genre the movie makes in the ending, I would consider Messengers 2: The Scarecrow as a thriller with subtle supernatural details which emphasize the drama and make the atmosphere richer.However, I cannot deny the fails from the movie, and the fact that it is not very memorable, so I can recommend it, not as a great movie, but as a competent prequel which ended up being much better than the previous film.

With a movie being an hour and thirty four minutes long I like more horror action than just within the last ten minutes of the movie. Yes building up characters in a movie is very essential, but if it is the entire movie, it's not worth watching. I love horror movies, but give me a break. If you have time to kill or you just wanna see it so you can say you did, then go ahead. If you are looking for a movie with an interesting storyline, suspenseful horror, or any other reason to watch a good horror flick then this one is not for you. Save your money and borrow a copy from a friend. It's not even worth the rental fee. I feel as though I have lost I.Q. points just watching this.