The task of
finding the right movie to feature here on I-Mockery is a tricky one, to
say the least. Sure, there is no shortage of bad horror movies out there,
but there are many different levels of "bad": most of the horror movies
out there are "bad" in the sense that they are poorly-written, not scary,
and so boring that calling them "straight-to-DVD" is as close as you can
get to paying them a compliment. The "bad" we look for is a step below
this.
In this realm, you've got your movies like Ax'em, Street Zombies,
and in RoG's opinion, Hostel. It can be tricky, but there are
certain criteria you can use to help make the decision easier. For
instance, when looking at movies, ask yourself this: does this movie have
bad special effects? Are the players all a bunch of unknowns? Does it star
a professional wrestler? If you answered "yes" to all three, then you're
going to have a movie just like our featured film today, Scarecrow Gone
Wild.
Just looking at the title, you can tell this movie is going to be a piece
of crap, so you'd think sales of the DVD would be nil. However, the
inclusion of the phrase "Gone Wild" means that there could be boobs
somewhere within and that alone will secure you a chunk of the lowest
common denominator. Also, the art department had enough foresight to put
very little lighting on the title character so as to disguise his
incredibly cheesy outfit, so that should help hide the negligible special
effects budget from the audience until it's too late. By doing this, and
by hiring the cheapest bunch of goons you can find to be your actors, you
should be able to make just enough money to cover the cost of your
celebrity cameo.
But enough about the economics of this tripe. Let's enjoy the actual
movie:
An unseen young man asks if you've heard the "scarecrow legend," and then
the opening credits roll while the camera pans around a cornfield.
Immediately after the title is the name of our special "celebrity" guest:
Ken Shamrock.
For those of you that are asking, "who?" right about now, Ken Shamrock is
a former champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He's also a
professional wrestler, which means he's almost qualified to be an actor.
More on him later. After a long period of credit-rolling during which
nothing happens, we finally get to see something more than swaying corn
stalks.
A young woman is fleeing through the cornfield from the Scarecrow. It's
not a smart thing to do when all you're wearing is a low-cut blouse and
shorts. Having been a corn detassler myself, I can tell you that corn
leaves are like razor blades, and what's worse, getting cut by one means
the wound will smell like corn for days, and you don't want to know what
happens when corn juice gets into your bloodstream. Luckily, there seems
to be a lot of well-defined paths through this particular cornfield, and
after a bit of running, screaming, and an almost obligatory falling down,
she bursts into a clearing.
A cross! Maybe Jesus can help her! Ah, but no. Jesus only helps those who
help themselves. Instead, she gets the scarecrow treatment.
He slices the air in front of her with an old sickle, and she falls to the
ground gasping for air and rubbing red paint on her throat. What a shame.
Not her death; I meant the scarecrow's mask. Very shameful indeed.
Anyway, that's the legend of the scarecrow: a scarecrow comes to life and
kills some girl. I wish I could say the movie ended there as well, but no.
Said legend was actually being told by Mike, co-captain of the baseball
team and the film's lead jock/hothead. He and his buddies are hazing a
trio of gagged young men in a scene that is not at all homoerotic,
especially not with exchanges like this:
The hazing is about describing to the "new meat" the glories of the
varsity letter jacket, chief among them being that it is a "guaranteed
pussy magnet," though with scenes like this, I can't imagine that such a
jacket is very useful to Mike. Anyway, before they can dispense with the
gagged shower pep talk and move onto shoving household into the new guys,
their coach busts in and ruins their fun.
Yes, despite only being a secondary character, and despite showing off
acting skills that make The Rock look like Sir Anthony Hopkins, Ken
Shamrock has top billing in this movie. He calls Mike and Jack, the male
lead and responsible guy character, into his office to scold them for
hazing the others. He seems really angry about it, but that could just be
Shamrock's acting getting in the way. Either way, he makes Jack promise
that there will be no hazing, and when Jack gives him his word, Coach
tells him, "you break your word, you invite the devil." Wary of
accidentally inviting the devil to anything, Jack tells Mike and the rest
of the team the bad news. Mike and others, however, have not promised to
leave the devil out of their plans, and so the hazing plan remains on
track, to be moved to a Coach-less location. All that remains is to
collect the last of the new guys: Jack's roommate, Sam.
Sam is in the men's room preparing to administer a shot of insulin
because, like Wilford Brimley, Sam has the diabetes. Now, I don't know
anyone who has diabetes, and so initially, I heard Jack make a remark
about drugs and thought Sam was injecting himself with steroids. Why
inject yourself in the stomach with steroids, I wondered. I guess he
wanted killer abs. But that wasn't the case, and to assume so was just
plain silly of me. Getting back to the scene, Sam and Jack are close, and
to emphasize this point, Jack takes the needle from Sam and does the
injecting for him. It's very touching. There's probably a line somewhere
in there about Jack giving Sam "just a little prick," but I know that my
readers demand more than a few bawdy remarks. Jack asks him about going
with the guys, but Sam balks at the idea, citing Mike's sadism as a big
part of his decision. On the other hand, Jack reminds him that "Beth is
going to be there."
That's her on the left. The other three grinning hobags are, from left to
right, Lynn, Sara, and Patty. They're all giggling about boys, and having
sex, and all that rot when Ed, one of the unnamed hazers from the shower
scene, comes over to say howdy to his girl Sara. Lynn starts pouting
because it turns out she and Ed had an affair, and everyone besides Sara
knew about it, but nobody said anything to Sara because that's what
friends are for. The tense atmosphere is broken when Lynn accuses Patty of
fellating Mike, which she doesn't deny. Cut to Mike and Jim (aka, the
black guy) chatting whilst making the newbies do pushups, and we hear
phrases like "chili three-way," "bank marks on your palm," and "drop a
dime." At least two have to do with sex, but I can't be sure about
"dropping a dime" on someone. For clarification, I should point out that
you cannot kill someone with a dime by tossing it off the Empire State
Building onto their head. It doesn't work that way.
While we're introducing characters, here's two more:
Beth gets a call from her former brother-in-law Ray. He's a doctor, and
that lady behind him is Sandy, the nurse he had an affair with while
married to Beth's sister (who is not in the movie). Also, there's Sandy's
bewbs. They're just hanging out there. Why, you ask? At first glance, it
seems like they're there to tantalize the horny viewer, but they're
actually a clever way of distracting the audience so that they miss Ray
saying that he promised he'd look out for her while she's away from home.
I assume that he promised her parents that, but why would they trust him
when he cheated on their daughter? Well my friends, that's what Sandy's
boobs are for. Anyway, Ray invites Beth to dinner with him and Sandy, but
for some reason, she turns him down.
Getting back to the case of Jack and Sam, with Sam's insulin administered,
he and Jack head to the parking lot where hopefully, Sam will ignores his
diabetes in order to get some sugar.
Ouch. Sam pusses out and Jack winds up hitting it off with Beth. She's not
at all put off by Jack's age, or that he looks like Steve Guttenberg in
profile. Poor Sam. What's worse, Mike finds him and corrals him into his
SUV with the rest of the new guys. And so, Jack leaves with the girl, and
Sam leaves packed in the trunk with a bunch of other dudes. Mike sums it
up succinctly: "Damn, dawg, you just got cock-blocked!"
And so, they're off.
Go west, young man!
Meanwhile, Jack is running with Beth as she trains for the 10k, and
they're both enjoying each other's company, even when she asks if Jack and
Sam are gay. They might not be, but let me just say this: Sam is probably
the bottom. I'm not saying it's wrong or anything like that, but if this
was prison, Jack would be the bull, and Sam would be the guy holding onto
Jack's belt loop. But they're not gay, so it doesn't matter. What does
matter is that Coach Shamrock spots the departing SUV and drills Jack for
information... I mean, he questions Jack for information. Jack assures him
that the devil has not been invited, and resumes his jog with Beth to the
gazebo, if you know what I mean.
Aw, that's so sweet. You almost forget that they've only known each other
for about three minutes.
Sam's life, on the other hand, is still pretty crappy. He and the rest of
the new meat are stripped down to their skivvies forced into the cornfield
amid girlish laughter and a shower of beer. To make matters worse, he's
starting to lapse into hypoglycemia, and in his angry and confused state,
he takes a swing at Mike, but winds up flattening Patty instead. Well that
tears it. Mike orders his men to tie Sam to the scarecrow, quipping, "you
do not hit my girlfriend like that!" "Like that"? Apparently, there is a
correct way to hit Mike's girlfriend. Jim and Ed lash Sam's arms to the
Scarecrow's while Sam shrieks curses at them in a very effeminate voice.
And then there's this:
Now, giving Mike the benefit of the doubt, he's just trying to psyche Sam
out, but going about it the wrong way. Let's just check back in with Jack,
shall we?
Like Sam, Jack is down to his underwear, and also like Sam, his situation
is quickly becoming sexual in nature. He and Beth are hitting it off even
better than before, and when what can only be described as soft core porn
music starts to play, the camera slowly pans upward, and we go right back
to Sam.
The guys continue to drench Sam with beer (and hopefully that's all) for
hours apparently, and even though Sam's blow didn't leave a mark on Patty,
they decide to leave him behind. Then, we go back to Jack and see that
he's still having sex with Beth, and then back to Sam's plight again, and
this time it's nightfall.
The guys are somewhat worried about leaving the beer-soaked Sam out
overnight, but when they call Jack to go pick him up, they're unable to
reach him. They're unable to reach him because he is STILL having sex with
Beth, as we see. They settle for the next best thing, namely sending the
newbies out to get Sam down. All they have to do is get Sam down and
rejoin the others at the beach. Farmland is usually within walking
distance of a beach, right? Anyway, it's a simple plan. What could
possibly go wrong?
