Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009)

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I am somewhat disappointed with this film. I felt it was not as captivating or well-made as the first Messengers movie. It has random nude scenes of which I found were completely irrelevant to the movies storyline, perhaps a change in directors from the first movie to the second has done this. However, I do find that actors in it are very good. There is no cliché high pitched screaming coming from the women which is a plus. On the horror scale, this movie rates very low in my eyes. Overall I wouldn't recommend watching this, watch the first movie instead and leave it at that!

Basically The Shining meets Signs meets Children of the Corn but it's better than it sounds. John Rollins is an out of luck farmer, his corn is diseased, crows are eating what's not, he can't afford to fix his irrigation or buy fertilizer, he's on the outs with his wife and an evil banker is foreclosing on his farm. Then he finds a hideous scarecrow that frightens his son but a new neighbor convinces him to put up. Suddenly his luck changes... the crows die, the corn is healthy, the water pump works, he finds a wad of money and even gets laid. Soon bad things happen to his enemies, his family situation grows worse and he starts to worry about the scarecrow.On the face of it, M2 isn't a very good movie but two things save it, Norman Reedus and Heather Stephens. Reedus fully develops John Rollins, in the beginning a good Christian, a tad paranoid and an almost broken man. When things improve his confidence and virility grow as do his bad habits with a little nudging from the new neighbor; and finally desperation when the price of success grows too high. Stephens does a very good job in her supporting role as John's wife, Mary Rollins. Between them, they make the movie believable. The filmmakers allow Reedus to act and don't burden him or Stephens with too many lines. For most of the movie, the scarecrow is just a totem but eventually comes to life and the film loses effectiveness. From other reviews I get that M2 doesn't work well as a sequel but I never saw the original. As a standalone, it's worth a watch.

For the first part I actually liked this movie: it's entertaining, has a good pace and the acting of Norman Reedus and Heather Stephens is pretty good. We've seen some scarecrows in horror movies before and although they're all (supposedly) scary by nature, they made this one a real mean bugger to look at! The evil acts of the scarecrow are rather subtle in the beginning, apparently it drives other people to their death from afar, by inducing car-accidents and suicides (unfortunately out of our view). It does this out of some sort of commitment to the main character of the movie, farmer John Rollins, who found this old scarecrow hidden somewhere in his barn and puts it in his dilapidated cornfield (not knowing of course that the hideous thing is evil, although his psychic little son DID warn him!). Where the scarecrow comes from or why it's evil is never really revealed; we do see some strange ghost-like kids wander around, which suggests some prior doom lurking over this shabby farm, but we're never given any explanation. Not that it matters much, in the first part of this movie the horror elements seem to be less important then the psychological developments in farmer Rollins' mind, and the way his family, especially his wife, deals with them. Which by the way made for some fine involving scenes.In the second half of the movie there are some more gruesome details and we see vague images of the scarecrow dragging his scythe behind him. And there's a strange neighbour who gives some free advice-from-hell (and a free roll in the hay with his sexy wife to boot)to Rollins, who doggedly follows this advice and gets more and more into supernatural trouble! Still, up to this point, the movie was more atmospherically creepy then a real shocker. But unfortunately the producers wanted some grand finale, and all of a sudden the menacing scarecrow changes into a preposterously stumbling and shrieking live monster that has to be overpowered (in a surprisingly simple way) by the joint efforts of the whole family. Well, they all must have had a good laugh on the set while filming this epic battle! The final scene (one of the non-identified ghost-like kids gathers the remnants of the defeated scarecrow in a bag and hides them in a secluded corner of the barn) suggests an open ending, and since this movie seems to be a prequel to a prior movie "Messengers", it COULD have made sense, albeit not for me, who did not see this original movie. So what the connection between the two is I cannot say. Knowing the exploitation-routines regarding sequels and prequels, probably no connection whatsoever!

OK, firstly, why on earth and how on earth did this movie get the title "Messengers 2"???? It had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the original movie, except for the fact they live in a house on a farm! Basically, you have a family on a farm who are hard up for cash and fighting! The dad decides to stick a scarecrow (that he found in the barn) into the crop, in the hope of saving some corn! He does this against his son's wishes (even though we never find out why)! The scarecrow then takes it upon himself to reap vengeance on all that crosses the dad! Including the crows! This movie was ridiculous! The original Messengers was creepy and had a good story! This is just laughable! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!