As far as soil-your-pants, creepy-ass movie characters go, only the clown has a slight edge over the scarecrow (unless the scarecrow is wearing a curly wig, a big red nose, face paint and a squirty flower, in which case the scarecrow wins hands down). Husk's sack-headed monstrosities sure are unsettling to look at, but they are made even more scary by the fact that they can move like the clappers and have very sharp nails in their fingers (metal nails—the type you hit with a hammer!).
Attacking with lightning speed and remarkable ferocity, these fleet-footed frights whittle down an unfortunate group of friends who crash their car by the side of a cornfield after ploughing headlong into a flock of crows. Seeking refuge in a dilapidated farmhouse, the pals try to figure out how to get back to the road without being killed and turned into scarecrows themselves.
Killer scarecrows are nothing new in the world of horror (see Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Scarecrows, Messengers 2: The Scarecrow, Scarecrow Gone Wild, Dark Harvest), Husk's characters are two dimensional, and much of its action can easily be labelled as predictable, but writer/director Brett Simmons more than compensates for his familiar foes, cookie-cutter victims and expected developments with a rollicking pace and several genuinely clever touches.
Simmons kicks the action off almost immediately and kills off the only female early in his film, putting paid to the tired 'final girl' trope that plagues many a modern horror movie; he also introduces an ingenious plot device that ensures that only one scarecrow can attack at any given time, which gives the remaining characters a faint glimmer of hope. Another nice touch sees the scarecrow losing its power when unmasked. It's unique elements like these that go to make his film a very enjoyable and satisfyingly scary flick.
