Hallowed Ground (2007)

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Liz Chambers (a solid and sympathetic performance by fetching brunette Jaimie Alexander) finds herself stuck in a small town after her car breaks down. Chambers soon discovers the town's grisly past involving a crazed deceased priest and his legacy of sacrifices. Liz eventually winds up thrust into a battle for survival with the deranged locals as well as a lethal murderous scarecrow.Writer/director David Benullo relates the derivative, yet still effective and enjoyable story at a quick pace, delivers a decent amount of mild gore, and builds a reasonable amount of tension and spooky atmosphere (the scarecrow in particular is genuinely creepy and unnerving). Moreover, the sound acting from the capable cast holds this picture together: Chloe Grace Moretz does well as frightened little girl Sabrina, Brian McNamara likewise registers nicely as the earnest Sheriff O'Connor, Nick Chinlund has a field day as evil preacher Jonas Hatheway, and Hudson Leick provides plenty of winning spark as eager and unscrupulous tabloid newspaper reporter Sarah Austin. Keith J. Duggan's sharp cinematography provides a neat stylish look. Neal Acree's spirited shivery score does the rousing trick. Marred by some regrettably cruddy CGI, this one overall still sizes up as a better than average shocker.

I don't care for thrillers, however, this one was better than most I've been forced to watch. I saw it on Sci-Fi, and watched it from beginning to end.That, in and of itself, speaks volumes about the film. I'm not one to watch films if I become bored or if I dislike it.The highlight for me was a stupid bird flu joke, which, now, I cannot recall. It will drive me crazy all day. Care to help a gal? I enjoyed the film... was drawn into it and had the opportunity to leave half-way through it... but stayed til the end just because I was having a good time.It was enjoyable. Not bad.

"Hallowed Ground" is decent for what it is, but is hampered by it's incessant clichés.**SPOILERS**Experiencing car problems, Liz Chambers, (Jaime Alexander) finds herself stranded in a small-town along with reporter Sarah Austin, (Hudson Leick) who is doing a story about the area. Arriving at the spot, they come under attack from a mysterious scarecrow, forcing Sheriff O'Connor, (Brian McNamara) to rescue them. As the encounters between them start to grow, she soon discovers that there's something strange going on around the town involving the townspeople. Coming across Sheriff O'Connor, (Brian McNamara) who is also an outsider to the town, she is let in on the secret of the town, when a maniacal preacher a hundred years earlier had placed a curse on the town for their torturing and killing him to cover up his plan to sacrifice the locals to God for better crop production, and she's chosen to bear his seed to bring him back to life. Stuck in the town, she tries whatever possible to escape their clutches.The Good News: This one here wasn't bad when it got some good parts to it. The main point in this one is the spectacular plot in here. Even with a soft spot for the dark-brutal-history-of-a-weird-town plot used in many horror films, the buried town secret set-up and the religious zealotry, along with the intriguing prophesying and general freakiness of the town's population makes the plot amusing. These are time-tested tricks which come into great play here and make it really chilling. It's also filled with a large amount of rather cool-looking scenes in here. The film hits the ground running with its approach, as right away, the mythology is tossed into the creepy mythology as we see a nutty preacher condemning some poor sap, and then, with no warning, with it's crucifixion time. Crucifixion scenes are pretty awkward and uncomfortable scenes, and this one slathers on the awkwardness of having a grown man nailed to a cross and planted in a cornfield. All semblance of terror is swept up with a cool sweeping shot of a series of crucified folks in a cornfield that is really impressive and unique. There's also an impressive scene of an apocalypse worth of crows towards the end, and there's a really nice aura given off by this sense. This one even has some nice action scenes, with enough shooting, house fires and a tater sacked mask scarecrow killer that eventually becomes unnecessary to the story. The film basically became a series of chase sequences involving the followers that want to impregnate her against her will. There's some nice gore in here as well, with plenty of nailed bodies to walls, pitchforks through the neck, a few impalings, some gunshots and more in here, leaving some rather nice views in here. Overall, this one here is better than expected but still decent.The Bad News: This one isn't bad, but did have a couple of problems. The biggest one is that the story and setting weren't sufficiently scary and original enough to create a serious horror flick. Way too much of the time, the actions coming from the film have a sense which isn't original, thought provoking, or meaningful enough for anyone to care. This one contains a lot of parts, from the stranger just happening to break down in a town that just happens to have a prophecy concerning someone like them to come to the town right when they need them to is a little out-there as far as credibility goes, and it does make for some really groan-inducing moments. The Scarecrow, as a main character in the movie, comes to life and begins to seemingly terrorize the town. However, the fault lies in the fact to not to stick with the horror film staple of letting the audience create their own fear by keeping them in the dark. Instead, they present the scarecrow every chance they get. They generally show where he is and what he is doing at all times, which is usually standing around with a pitchfork waiting and stalking. The movie also betrays its one halfway decent chill, where the sight of blood on a minivan that knowingly contained a family. However, not too surprisingly, only the parents died, as the little kid managed to escape. Not enough movies have the balls to kill kids off on screen, but if you can't even bring yourself to kill one off-screen, then it really deprives of the sense of fear and dread. This one should've had the chance to offer up even more chills through it's ability to be that discriminate. These few flaws drop the film down somewhat.The Final Verdict: Not all that bad, and having some good points to it, but too bogged down with it's clichés to come up as anything beyond the ordinary. Worth a look for passing interest fans, or for those with a special appreciation for these films, while the others would better off with a more traditional fare.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language

JAIMIE Alexander is a young woman who inadvertently stumbles upon a town full of loonies who believe a legend about a demented preacher involved in human sacrifices. The ghost of a town is the wrong place for a gal like Alexander to be, for she's in immediate peril from them and a scarecrow that comes to life.It's all very reminiscent of every horror film ever made about cornfields and "children of the corn" and skies full of menacing black crows. This one had a lot of potential if it knew that the real scares would come from the scarecrow coming to life and had developed that theme in a more compelling way. The scarecrow angle could have been played for better thrills.BRIAN McNAMARA, as the town sheriff who knows more than he's willing to say about everything, is fine, but JAIMIE Alexander gives the impression that she's not capable or willing to give the role of the distraught woman more than a basic reading.I just happened to come across it while surfing cable TV and stayed tuned to see whether it developed into a logical fright film. It didn't. Too many loopholes and implausible circumstances throughout, but it was at least an average thriller of its kind. The cornfield scenes were extremely well photographed but there was a tacky "direct to TV" look about the rest of the film.