Touches You

A different way of telling a story

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

SCARECROWS is a dark and gruesome low budget US horror film of the late 1980s. The story is small scale but quite inventive and involves a plane full of criminals who end up on a remote farm surrounded by creepy looking scarecrows. As well as fighting among themselves, they soon discover that the scarecrows are very much alive and out for blood.This story is fast paced and fairly atmospheric given the constraints of the era. The characters are unlikeable but their exchanges are fast-paced so that you don't have time to get bored by them. The special effects are limited, but the emphasis is very much on the visceral, and body dismemberment plays a big part in the proceedings. In terms of scares, there are some creepy and jumpy moments, but nothing too disturbing. I give it a thumbs up.

A group of mercenaries rob an Army payroll and flee via plane with two hostages. One of the mercs decides to take the money and parachute into the night. The others land the plane and pursue him. Soon they're in a run-down farmhouse being attacked by evil scarecrows.Action-horror hybrid with a thin script that wastes no time with silly things like setting up its story or developing its characters. Which is kind of the problem as writer/director William Wesley just wants to do "soldiers vs zombie scarecrows" and damned if he cares how to make that happen. When I was a teenager I had this idea for a horror movie about a group of people in a convenience store being trapped inside and killed off one by one by demons. I was convinced it was the coolest idea ever (it wasn't), but I never really fleshed the idea out beyond its concept and daydreaming some effects-heavy scenes. Watching this movie makes me think of that because William Wesley clearly had an idea he was excited about but he doesn't go beyond that idea and really try to craft a good movie. He would do this again with Route 666, another movie with a decent premise but amateur execution.It's not a scary movie at all, focusing a little too much on action and not enough on being frightening. The actors are all forgettable. Even now, a few minutes after having watched the movie, I can't remember any of their faces. There's this irritating device of the mercenaries talking over their radios that gets on your nerves and ruins any chance of building suspense. Wesley is afraid of letting the movie be quiet, even when it desperately needs to be. I don't think there's ten whole seconds in this movie without someone talking. This isn't to say this movie is a complete stinker. It has some nice cinematography from Peter Deming and a decent score by Terry Plumeri. So a reasonable amount of creepy atmosphere is present throughout the picture. Also, considering the film's low budget, the special effects are impressive. But I can't help but think this is such a missed opportunity. Had Wesley just spent a little more time on his script and a little less time worrying about the violence and gore, this could've been a good movie. As it is, it's worth watching once but that's it. Thirteen year-old boys will probably like it more than most.

A Joe Pesci look alike and his military friends rob and kidnap a father/daughter combo, escaping in a jet airplane. During flight, one of the robbers grabs the loot and parachutes onto a farm haunted by demonic scarecrows. They land, and it becomes obvious that the human characters here don't matter, scarecrows are the main draw.It's super low-budget without showing too much, and the acting is very b-movie in an enjoyable way. Unfortunately, the story is just a set up to have guys with guns get sneakily picked off by alie.. I mean predato.. I mean scarecrows.But the simple plot works through decent effects, competent direction, and the scarecrows themselves. (They're near invulnerable, wield knives, pitchforks, cleavers, and sew people full of leaves to make them into zombified slaves.) There's some genuinely creepy moments and some laughable schlock. If you don't go in expecting much, this can be a fun ride.

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.