(2009. dir: Martin Barnewitz) Alright, I'm tempted to call it the Citizen Kane of creepy scarecrow movies. Two things stop me: first, I haven't seen them all, although I'm working on that, and second, the actors who play the farm family are wrong. They're not bad, the wife and daughter and little boy; they're just city-slickers. You can't picture any of these people involved in the kind of constant chores a farm demands, anything beyond hauling the occasional picturesque bucket of apples across the length of the porch. The wife's role needed a Patricia Clarkson type: someone sexy and strong, but hard-working enough to exist in a place far beyond mere glamour. Even Reedus in the lead, although you absolutely buy that he grew up on a farm, is obviously new to this particular farm, or relatively new. It's as if they left out the part of the story where John Rollins and his family moved to the city for ten years before returning to buy a ramshackle farmhouse and a downtrodden (haunted) cornfield. I guess they left it out for reasons that would be apparent if I watched the original Pang Brothers movie, which I may, but there's little chance it will be as good as this.
First of all, it won't have Norman Reedus, who is equally convincing as good guy, trying desperately to save his family while all they can see is him stalking through the house with a sickle in his hand, and bad guy, raping his wife, then wanly apologizing. Reedus is the fascinating, enigmatic core from which the movie emanates, and the camera loves him. We start with a view of the farmhouse from the cornfield. There's a man in his Sunday clothes standing still on the porch, looking out as his corn. The camera moves in and we see he's holding a Bible behind his back. Meaningfully, he sets the Bible down, strips off his coat, and ventures forward to ruin his fancy duds by working in the soil; it doesn't matter, as he won't be going to church anymore. In this first moment, he steps away from the conventional God who has abandoned his farm and family to ruin, and opens the door to a different, darker, telluric god, the one who will raise his fortunes, but at a terrible price.
Other than Reedus having to spend too much time spinning around disoriented amongst the corn-rows (but he and his editor both have the chops to carry it off), this movie looks great. The camera pulls in on him alone, with few exceptions giving us only his perspective, and it works like gangbusters. It sounds great, too, with good music well-used and a great drone of insect noises, not to mention the unsettling sound of a scythe-blade being dragged across the ground. The symbolism stays uncomplicated and unpretentious ("daddy, the scarecrow is you!"; "you planted your seeds, now reap your reward") and Richard Riehle is just avuncular enough as the troubling neighbor to convince us to trust him although, let's face it, we all know we shouldn't. Just the look of the scarecrow is creepy as hell, and when the little boy whispers in dread, "It knows that I know," a chill goes up your damn spine.
Rating: four stars
Reedus Factor: five stars
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