How about scary negatives and a killer scarecrow? Cheesy effects aside,
it's kind of implied that Sam and the scarecrow have become linked
somehow, and the scarecrow teleports to a spot at the bottom of the
mountain of hay and stalks off, itching to swing his sickle around a
little. Meanwhile, Jack awakens from his slumber (you'd need a nap, too,
after 5-6 hours of sex) with a start, as though something is wrong. No,
wait, nevermind. He rolls over, swaps a few coy remarks with Beth, and
then they start having sex. Again. Getting back to the movie...
Oh wait, I haven't introduced you to any of the new recruits yet. From the
left, you have Fodder, Dead Meat, and Corpse-in-Training. Yeah, they're
gonna die, but come on, you knew that. Hell, they're like the red shirts
in the original Star Trek. Furthermore, the one on the right lets out a
quick fart in order to make his death far less tragic.
The remaining two make it to Sam and wonder if they should call for help,
on account of him not moving and all. Who do they call? Coach, of course.
He doesn't pick up his phone either, so I can only postulate that he, like
Jack, is preoccupied with a sex marathon of his own. They at least have
the presence of mind to get Sam down, but that proves their downfall.
The scarecrow creeps up behind Fodder and stabs him repeatedly with his
sickle, accompanied by a sound not unlike a shovel being thrust into loose
soil. Dead Meat screams and runs, as is the norm, and after a bit of
running, he trips over Corpse-in-Training.
He's clutching at some kind of tumor that appears to have been knocked
loose by the scarecrow. Suffice to say, Dead Meat is too scared to do
anything except back into the scarecrow, and then look up and scream as
the scarecrow kills him. Oh, you bit players and your crazy antics.
Mike... he finally stopped having sex long enough to check his messages
and hear that his friend has been left for dead in a cornfield. Man, so
much for enjoying the afterglow, eh Mike?
When they get to Sam they discover that he's gone into insulin shock. And
also that there is now a huge spotlight shining on that very spot.
Luckily, there are some powdered donuts laying nearby to tide Sam over
while Beth gets ahold of her adulterous former doctor-in-law.
Yet again, Sandy's boobs are put out for all the world to see. No real
reason, she just likes to slip in only bottoms, I guess. They don't even
start out exposed; she actually starts shifting around until they're
completely out from under the covers. Anyway, Beth explains the situation
to Ray, and he agrees to meet them at the hospital. He tells Sandy the
news, and she says that she'll get dressed, but you never know with her.
In what is best described as visual irony, the scene changes from an
unnaturally well-lit cornfield to a hospital parking lot with no lighting
whatsoever. Maybe the paramedics have nightvision goggles, or something.
Whatever the case, they bring Sam inside:
... Yeah, a hospital. Now, I realize that you can't really shoot in a
hospital on account of them being open for business 24 hours a day, but
let me ask you this: if you were involved in a movie with a scene that
called for a hospital set, wouldn't you at least LOOK at an actual
hospital to see what one looked like on the inside before you started
putting one together in one of the few places you could afford to film?
Furthermore, wouldn't you spend a few extra dollars to hire some extras so
that it doesn't look like the entire hospital is being run by a single
doctor and nurse? For the set designers of Scarecrow Gone Wild, the answer
is a resounding "NO!" Still, I want you to suspend your disbelief for a
moment because after Ray and Sandy take Sam into what I will generously
call the "OR," Jack and Beth engage in the kind of dialog you would expect
from two people who, after many, many hours of sex, are mentally and
physically exhausted. I have transcribed their conversation for your
amusement:
Jack: I never shoulda left him! I shouldn't have been... Beth: Been with me? Jack: I never meant to but I screwed you anyway. Beth: That's what we were doing? Screwing!? Jack: No, I screwed my friend. Beth: No, you got it right the first time. You screwed me, twice earlier,
and again just now, but this time you didn't bother to kiss me.
Bravo, Jack and Beth, bravo. You put Abbott and Costello to shame.
So ends their busy night. Beth storms off, and Jack tries to pensive.
The next day, it's business as usual for the rest of the guys and gals on
the beach. The guys set up a volleyball net while the gals put their
towels down and bask. Upon setting her towel down, Lynn removes her top.
Why? It's another clever distraction, you see. The guys wonder briefly why
none of the new guys have called to ask about how to get to the beach from
wherever they were, but as soon as Mike calls attention to Lynn's tater
tots, that concern goes out the window. The focus then shifts to Mike
screwing around with Patty. Ah, good times. Lynn's attention is drawn to a
curious whistling coming from some nearby rocks. She slips her top back on
to go investigate, but it turns out to just be Ed sneaking up to score a
cheap scare on the audience.
He just want to make sure that Lynn won't reveal their secret, and that
she knows she doesn't mean a thing to him. Classy. At the same time, Jim
swipes Phil's (aka guitar guy) songbook and plays one-man keep away. Lynn
puts an end to his fun, and Jim posits that she must be "on the rag." He
goes on to say that he "might get a chance to earn his red wings." Excuse
me for a moment...
AHAHAHAHAHAAA! Oh, god, that is hilarious! Oh, tasting menstrual blood,
that is just too funny! Jim, you are a regular cut-up!
Back at the pseudo-hospital, Jack and Beth make up after the poorly-worded
fight they had last night. Sam is ok, if you consider being in a coma to
be "ok". I wish I had been in a coma too, because Jack decides to regale
Beth with the story of how Sam saved his life when he was so high he
nearly jumped off a bridge into oncoming traffic. As he's telling the very
emotional tale, and as he laments not being around to save Sam, you really
have a chance to see what a completely talentless and god-awful actor Jack
really is. He vows to go give Mike a piece of his mind, and Beth tags
along for the hell of it.
Next, you get two semi-humorous moments in line with Jack's comically bad
monologue. First, Coach returns to his office to listen to the message
from the dead guys, and even though his only response to the message is "dammit!"
Ken Shamrock demonstrates that he is a much better actor than Jack.
For the second moment, we go back to the beach for a volleyball game.
Since the actors aren't mic'ed, it would have been a very quiet scene, but
post production sprang to the rescue and added in the sound of the
volleyball being hit. Too bad they weren't able to get the sound to synch
up with hardly any of the actual hits.
Anyway, Mike's serve goes way out of bounds, and when Lynn goes for the
ball, she hears that same whistling coming from those same rocks. The
scarecrow? No, it's just Jim creeping up on her this time. He surprises
her and, with all the wit and charm of Tony Montana, he tries to woo her.
No dice
The game continues, only this time there's music: a song by a band doing a
terrible, terrible impression of Smashmouth. Thanks, guys, I really needed
to watch the whole freaking game with a crappy soundtrack. Oh, but I was
wrong. The game did serve a purpose. In typical hothead fashion, Mike
loses his temper when his team loses the game and lashes out at everyone.
During his tirade, he reveals to Sara that Ed had an affair with Lynn.
Sara's a bit upset, hell everyone's a bit upset, and so they all scatter,
with Ed going after Sara.
Somehow, the two of them wind up walking in the opposite direction that
they were walking before, and Sara's tantrum takes them up onto the rocks.
Ed gives her a lame apology, taking a page from the Mel Gibson/Mark Foley
handbook and blaming his indiscretion on booze. Suddenly, they hear the
whistling, but assume that it's just the guys being assholes. Ed goes off
to get rid of them, and thank god for that. The movie's almost halfway
over, and it's about time we started whittling down the list of unlikable
characters.
After almost five seconds of waiting, Sara begins to suspect that
something is wrong. She investigates...
She finds her boyfriend disemboweled. This may be one of the funnier parts
of the movie, as Ed's bowels look like a red funnel cake, and he gives the
lamest death performance I've seen in quite some time. Sara screams, even
moreso when the scarecrow grabs her. They cut away to show Sam in the
hospital having a fit of some sort in what film school 101 calls
"foreshadowing."
Rather than kill her outright, the scarecrow just drags her along the
beach for a bit. She screams her head off, and though she can't seem to
wriggle free of his grip, her screaming eventually annoys him so much that
he lets go. She runs, but let's face it: what always happens when
semi-attractive women run from movie monsters? That's right, she tripped
and fell.
Thankfully, there's a conveniently-placed, brightly-colored rock nearby,
and the scarecrow slowly picks it up and smashes her head in with it. It's
lucky for him that she was too damn stupid to do anything but writhe about
screaming.
Wow, has it really been more than two minutes since the last bit of crass
humor? Well thank god Mike and Jim are still alive. Jim's giving Mike a
pep talk about being a total dickwad while the two of them finish burying
Phil in the sand. If Patty continues to be mad at Mike, Jim says, he may
have to apologize. Jim sees nothing ironic at all about prescribing this
advice. He does know how to cheer Mike up, though: pee on Phil's head.
And poor Phil can't do anything. Why, he's trapped under almost three
inches of sand. How could anyone break free from that? Frankly, I think he
was just pretending not to like it. Their bladders empty, Mike and Jim
depart, and the camera switches to first person to make you think Phil's
time has come. Nope, it's just Jack and Beth. "You look pissed," Jack says
to Phil. Good one, Jack. It's lines like that that make me feel like I'm
the one getting peed on.
