Friday 1 October 2021

Castle Vanian Halloween Special: Scary Scarecrows: Scarecrow (2002)

How does a movie this camp, one that went straight to video, make the top 5?

It’s a revenge thing, the poor sod. Lester Dwervick (TimYoung) is just this trailer park kid who has fuck all. Nobody likes him, then gets murdered, and comes back for revenge. You’re kind of with him because they all deserve to die, really. He spares his mum, even though she didn’t bother going to his funeral. It’s nice that some revenge was had.

He did spare the girl too.

Tiffany Shepis’s Judy Patterson? In the end, yeah. Eventually. In all fairness, she did stand up for him – but he did get it wrong with her too.

The production quality isn’t as high as some of the others we’ve seen…

No, it’s not but it still works well, and you don’t really need a high budget to make a movie like this work. The sound is good enough and it’s well lit. The acting isn’t great, maybe, but it’s not terrible, either. The Scarecrow was good. 

Although… it would have been better if you hadn’t been able to see the guy behind the mask… He spoke and laughed, which was different from a lot of the other scarecrow movies we've seen.


I liked the way he spoke. It was comically sinister and kind of sarcastic. Like an old Batman villain.

Yeah, it was good.

The production quality makes me think that maybe it was someone’s first attempt… like maybe it was a bit amateur.

It does have that feel. Actually, I think maybe it was Emmanuel Itier’s (the director) second film… But, like you said, although it’s kind of amateur, that doesn’t take away from your enjoyment of it.

What is your favourite moment of the movie?

My favourite moment was when Lester went after the guy who killed him, his mom’s sleazy boyfriend. “Look what you made me do. I didn’t mean to!” It was perfect that The Scarecrow (played by Todd Rex) mocked the drunk with the same words that he used when he killed Lester. Have it back, bitch!

My only complaint was that it ended too soon. He should have made him suffer a lot more.

That’s a little disturbing… but I can’t disagree.

What are your thoughts on the dialogue? Did it seem realistic to you?

Well, I never went to an American school… and I never saw anyone get so bullied at school but if I’d had to go through what that poor kid did, I probably would have ended up a mass murderer too. They were so horrible and so relentless for no apparent reason that it was no wonder he snapped.

What did you think of the acting overall?

Tiffany Shepis has been in too much now to not be good. She can’t be a bad actor, or she wouldn’t keep getting cast. Great tits can only get you so far. She might be a b-movie actor, but she’s good at what she does.

The kid telling the story at the beginning, Mitch (DerrickBishop) was good too. Some of the other actors were pretty bad, like Lester’s mom (Belinda Gavin,) but most were decent enough. I thought Lester wasn’t quite twisted enough, honestly, with everything he’d been through.

Mind you… if the main character is a teenager, I’m Dutch – but Hollywood always does that.

What did you think of the ending? Was it a good resolution?

It was a great twist at the end. You’ve got Mitch, who was telling the story all along, just watching his friends get murdered – or did he lure them there? Maybe he was after some revenge of his own…

Either way, I worry about the people living in that town…

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