Review of Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009) by Jenifer L — 10 Dec 2009

Oh dear lord. If you follow my reviews, then you definitely know by now that I love franchising. Even if it just makes awful movies. If you can somehow make a sequel/prequel/spin-off for some reason I'll watch it just to watch it. That was my mistake with "Messengers 2: The Scarecrow". It's not a prequel despite its synopsis. Hell, most of it doesn't make sense on its own let alone in connection with the Pang Brothers first American film. So from this point on I'll refer to it only as "The Scarecrow" because it was just a name splice to make people watch it. Like me.

Of course, it does also take place on a farm in North Dakota. That's about it for connections. It's not even the same kind of farm. The first film had sun flowers. This one is corn. The first film was about a ghost family haunting the house. This one is about a cursed fucking scarecrow haunting a field. Yeah, a haunted field. You heard me. And the family living there, not acted at all by a very bland cast including the confusing performance of Mr. "Boondock Saints" hisself Norman Reedus, is turned into attacking each other (sort of) in some weird sort of 'black magic spell' that the scarecrow casts on them. Goddammit, I wish this film made a lick of sense.

Essentially that's what you get with "The Scarecrow". You take away the lackluster directing, the nonexistent acting, and the shit special effects and all you have left is a story that really doesn't make sense (its okay though, its sort of explained at the end to mostly be hallucinations on the dad! *cough cop out cough*) as decisions made by characters seem completely random, the deaths completely out of the blue, the pacing plodding, and characters that appear without any indication or purpose. The neighbors are just a confusing side story element, not to mention the neighbor wife whom only serves as a nudity point twice once as she...bathes in the sprinklers?...and the actual scarecrow's powers seem to shift and confuse the rest of the story. By the end he just kind of walks around and tries to kill people.

I'll give it to the film that by the end, when the scarecrow manages to finally haul his ass off the stake and start actually doing something, I was at the point of not caring so much I just laughed at it. The jump scares were all off and the random bits of 'terror' that I was supposed to feel came off 'hey, lets see that shitty looking scarecrow again!' instead of frightening. But by the last half hour, which didn't make any sense, I ended up actually having a fun time watching it. So it gets one star for its unintentional entertainment factor.

"The Scarecrow" is absurd, silly, and horribly put together and as a Horror film neither strikes a thought provoking chord nor horror in the slightest degree. Except in the fact that they marketed it as a prequel to "The Messengers". Which angers me again, now that I remember that. If you are going to franchise it, at least TRY to make it connect to the first one.