Another in the After Dark Originals series, like the previously-reviewed Prowl, hits DVD shelves. Not sure what fixation After Dark has with one-word titles. At any rate, Husk takes the old killer scarecrow trope and gives it a spin that works more often than it doesn’t, leaving the viewer with one of the better entries in the After Dark series, although no Dread, perhaps the title to beat.
First of all, kudos to writer/director Brett Simmons, who based the feature on his short of the same name. Films based on shorts often feel like bloated versions of their former selves, artificially inflated to feature length. Here, Simmons has a story to tell and at no point does the film suffer from elephantitis of the reel. In fact, Simmons has the good sense to get the action moving very quickly, introducing the characters and placing them in harm’s way by the fifteen minute mark. That’s good news for those of us who spend the first half hour of most horror films waiting for the creators to get the ball rolling rather than waste time getting to know disposable teen characters who serve as little more than grist for a bloody mill.
Unfortunately for the viewer, the quick introductions of these characters serve the story poorly, giving us only sketches of the potential victims before things start rolling. There’s little to differentiate the characters from one another until the midpoint of the film, with the exception of Tammin Sursock as Natalie, the only girl in the film, and Devon Graye’s Scott, the “nerd” of the group. Later, we can distinguish between the obsessive Brian (Wes Chatham) and more level-headed Chris (C.J. Thomason), but that feels late in the game to be drawing important distinctions.
The young friends find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere following an accident triggered by a bird striking the car. The accident is savage enough to leave most of the gang unconscious, and, upon waking, they realize that their friend Johnny (Ben Easter) has gone missing, probably wandering into the acres of corn that line the highway. Upon investigation, the group finds a house in a clearing, an island in a sea of corn, apparently abandoned. As Chris and Scott explore the house, they come across Johnny in an upstairs room, sewing and looking more corpsified than usual. His milk-white eyes and recent tendency to drive long metal nails through his fingertips are also cause for alarm. Natalie slips into the corn, as well, hunting for a figure she sees peering at them through the stalks, and, next thing you know, Natalie’s among the missing, leaving the three males to invent a way of escape.
This is made more difficult by the scarecrows stalking through the corn, happy to slash up any trespassers with their nail-y hands and string them up on an inverted cross of sorts. Soon, the boys find themselves trapped in the abandoned house, while Scott has visions of a deadly fraternal feud in the house’s past. In fact, the most surprising thing about Husk is that it honestly has a story to tell, one more in common with a traditional haunting tale than a slashery evil scarecrow movie, and it’s all the better for it. Simmons does a fine job of giving the scarecrow menace rules, namely that they cannot attack unless you’re in their corn field domain, and creates a reasonable a back story explaining why all of this is happening in the first place.
Dissent soon splinters our heroes’ ranks as Brian becomes fixated on finding and saving Natalie, while Chris simply wants to get through the corn and back to the road, leaving Scott to alternate between his allegiance to his friends. The whole affair ends well, too, making Husk one of the more satisfying After Dark entries.
Simmons doesn’t skimp on the gore for the film, although that’s not really the point here, and manages to make some creepy moves within the sewing room. If not outright terrifying, Husk has some chills to offer, and for those of you who get the wigguns around scarecrows, there are some nice moments to highlight and expand that fear. The acting is typical of this time of film, with a good turn by Devon Graye, but the rest of the cast is competent, too, if not superior. The movie is well-paced and entertaining and, while no classic of the genre, is a perfectly worthwhile way to spend ninety minutes on a rainy night.