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.

Five criminals hijack a plane with its pilot and his daughter to take them and their stolen millions to Mexico. Bert double-crosses the group and parachutes out with the loot. He lands in a field where he's surrounded by scarecrows and attacked. His former comrades are in pursuit as they force the plane to land on a nearby landing strip.

This is a low budget horror with relative amateurs. The good news is that this takes place almost entirely at night. The darkness hides the movie's flaws and the shadows accentuate its strengths. None of the actors are big time. It probably needs Kellie to be a better protagonist but the actress is only capable of being a pretty face. Even her screams are unconvincing. There is a good amount amateur gore but none of it is actually scary. The amateur filmmaking lacks the intensity. As an amateur indie horror, it's a commendable effort.

The best thing about this horror movie are the scary looking demonic scarecrows that can take human form in their efforts to dispatch a bunch of unlikable humans involved in a convoluted plotline involving stolen money and the efforts to retrieve it. This starts off intriguing with the shot of the sinister field but soon becomes difficult to endure as the attempts to frighten the audience takes a disturbing, gory turn to the point where you spend more time staring away from the screen as body parts fall off their torsos, blood flows and the scarecrows sew them onto their paper filled bodies to take on human form.

The acting is barely passable as the humans just act more absurd in their attempts to outwit each other and greed takes over to find what remains of the cash, now replacing the paper inside the scarecrow. Humorless and taking itself far too serious in a rather pretentious way, this doesn't even present the slasher like killings in a way that slasher movies often did, creating amusing ways to make the audience laugh even when grossed out. As a good majority of this is set in the darkened country, there's not even pretty scenery to look at. When all you have are well imagined props and really eerie looking costumes to give thumbs up to, that's not really a worthy element to praise. The florescent photography is also a major distraction. It never helps a horror movie wjrj the audience struggles to stay awake. Worth seeing for horror movie buffs, but one that you'll quickly forget about.