The killer scarecrow genre gets another entry, but it doesn’t plow any new ground in fact the field is full of horror film clichés. You’ll need a scarecrow to scare this DVD away from your player (unless you just have to see every scarecrow movie).
Liz’s (Jaimie Alexander) car breaks down in the tiny berg of Hope. She goes to the local diner to get a meal and runs into Sarah (Hudson Leick), a tabloid reporter. She’s in town to investigate the legend of a mad preacher (Nick Chinlund) who in 1896 crucified folks in the cornfield to ensure a good crop for the fields. It turns out that the preacher, who was burned at the stake by angry villagers (isn’t that always the case), prophesied his return.
The two gals go out to the preacher’s farm and to set up for a photo shoot for the magazine and the girls assemble a scarecrow. The preacher’s ghost possesses that scarecrow and one of them finds out the hard way that the preacher has possessed the form of the scarecrow when she meets it up close and personal.
He has to remain in the hay filled body until all of the portions of the prophecy have come to pass. Liz returns to the village for help but finds none, in fact she finds that they’re more involved than she imagined.
Hallowed Ground isn’t exactly very holy and the plot is ground out of other horror movies. There’s the girl in peril that part of a nefarious prophecy that she stumbles onto. There’s also the obvious homage from Children of the Corn and maybe even Wicker Man since the village isn’t exactly innocent in the events that surround the evil corn patch. Our heroine has a troubled past and gets to redeem herself a bit as is also common in these types of films.
We even through in a little child in danger scenario that, of course, harkens back to the need of the heroine’s redemption. Throw in some bad CGI crows and you’ve got all the hay to stuff a set of clothes and try and make a little change by getting your film onto the shelf at the DVD store.
The problem is that when people rent it they’ll find that it was just a straw man and they might just set fire to it and your video store. The film might entertain if you have a head full of straw, but I’d bet not.
Hallowed Ground is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features aren’t exactly very special and only include a collection of trailers for other Genius Entertainment DVDs.
This film is not anything to crow about [insert rimshot here] and I’d say that it really doesn’t have very much to recommend it since you’ve seen it elsewhere and in better movies.
Hallowed Ground is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
Your Talkback on this Story