Movies about scarecrows run the gamut from The Dark Night Of The Scarecrow and the 1988 film Scarecrows to Scarecrows Of the Third Reich and the 2017 film Scarecrows. But how many are there about scareycrows? As far as I can tell, just one. Lucy Townsend’s debut feature, Scareycrows from 2017 gives these mock scarecrows a chance to get in on the homicidal fun.

The English seaside town of Sidcombe has a tradition of hanging up imitation scarecrows called scareycrows around the town at Halloween. It dates back to ye olde days when an army of French invaders was scared off by an army of these straw men. An army that may or may not have come to life and slaughtered the invaders depending on which version of the tale you believe.

However this year things are different. Ryan (Tom Child) has asked Amy (Alice Maguire) to move to London with him, but that decision may be the least of her worries. Lindsey (Jessica Sargent, Harvest Of The Dead) is upset that her boyfriend seems to have ghosted her. And he’s not the only one who’s gone missing.

As you can maybe tell from the title and poster, Scareycrows is a horror-comedy. Although with a severed head turning up in the first five minutes it might not seem like it. But the film turns into a nice mix of occult horror and chuckles. The script by David Hardie and Diana Townsend, (the director’s uncle and mother) takes itself just seriously enough to make the horror work when it needs to. Cassie (April Hughes) is creepy as the mute young witch with whom one of the survivors shares a dark secret. In between the horror, we get frequent laughs, most of the slapstick variety.

Running a quick seventy-two minutes, Scareycrows is an unexpected treat, one of those films that comes out of nowhere to deliver a much needed pleasant surprise. The fact this seems to have flown under everyone’s radar is criminal. You can find out more on the film’s Facebook page.

Scareycrows is available via Indie Rights.