Husk

Sorry it has been awhile, life got in the way and I had to put my movie watching in limbo for a few weeks! I'm back now and ready to go...  So on with the blog and today I will be looking at Husk.

Husk starts like any other generic horror film, a group of friends are travelling across what appears to be middle America on some form of group bonding exercise.  An unfortunate accident involving their SUV and a group of crows scoring an epic fail at a game of chicken leaves our characters stranded at the road side surrounded by corn fields, what shall we do now with no mobile coverage and only a lonely looking farmhouse for company?  I know lets split up in typical cast culling style and investigate!

As the friends attempt to extract themselves from their predicament it becomes clear that all is not normal with the farm, abandoned vehicles and a run down excuse for a farmhouse indicate there must be some kind of psycho murderer on the loose...  Because what happens when people live in secluded places like these?  They turn into Leatherface.  Well in Husk this isn't strictly true as it turns out our band of happy stereotypes are being hunted by scarecrows, in a twisted Children Of The Corn fashion our straw based cultists want to kill the flesh people and make them join the collective.

Now this could have been an interesting premise had the makers of this film actually done something with it, instead what starts out as something different and potentially unique turns into another paint by numbers killing of the friends the viewer is just left with the task of working out in what order they are going to die.  There is a back story as to why the scarecrows aren't particularly happy hanging around all day but there's nothing original to see there.  The use of one of the characters as having the ability to "see" the back story unfold in visions is well done, but given his brain dead friends think he's going a bit loony it's never fully utilised to move the film along.

The problem with the plot is the feel of it being unfinished, some actions of the characters are illogical; for example it is explained that whilst one of the recently killed people is upstairs getting their freak on with a hammer, some nails and their fingers the spirit cannot occupy the scarecrows in the field... At this point would you not as a rational human being say "screw this so-and-so is dead lets make a run for it!"

The Scarecrow was fed up of waiting for Christopher Nolan to start filming the third instalment of Batman

The acting is of an average standard, they aren't terrible it just never gets above made for TV standard.  With a poor script, the writer appears to have written the majority of it on the back of a beer mat whilst discussing the plot with his mates down the pub, the actors have little to work with.  Unfortunately they are put into neat little characters moulds of jock, geek, bad boy and girl (yes, due to her short on screen time we simple only discern her gender as her defining character feature).  Jock is blonde and macho, geek wears thick rimmed glasses and is weedy, and bad boy wears black biker jacket with too much gel in his hair...  It's really that to the point.

For a small budget the film is well made, it would easily stand up to many big release films in the style and direction.  The scarecrows look good when seen in close up and cornfields are just scary full stop in my opinion.  Due to the budget the limited amount of gore is actually good due to a lack of reliance on CGI, particularly in one cringe worthy moment when the undead are becoming part of the sack cloth gang.

I wouldn't disregard the production company, After Dark Films, on the basis of Husk though, the trailers accompanying the feature had a couple of their other films which could redeem them for this average, run of the mill output.

In conclusion I wouldn't bother with Husk, you've seen it all before and done better; this is like someone came up with the idea of trying to combine Signs with Jeepers Creepers and realised it was probably a bad idea half way through.  For a simple plot summary (which'll be quicker than getting the DVD out of the box); stranded friends split up, scarecrows go boo, all but one die, large potential for even worse sequel ending...  I apologise if I've ruined it for you but this is definitely one to avoid.