Husk (2011)

What can you really say about a movie like Husk? I mean, really. By all accounts, it should be one of those easily dismissible Syfy-like movies that plays it safe and colors within the lines, and is forgettable even before it ends... and yet for some reason we enjoyed it. Mostly.

There's something creepy -or at the very least, interesting- about scarecrows; they're usually just a bunch of hay stuffed in some raggedy old clothes, a mask, and maybe a hat, but they always just feel creepy.

Some of them are apparently stuffed with evil as well.

Tammin Sursok, who plays the mysterious "A" on ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars, is the damsel in distress in this one, and we were happy to see her in a more mature role. And no, we didn't just spoil Pretty Little Liars for you, unless you're a 12-year-old girl... in which case you should be too scared too be reading through a website dedicated to Horror movies. Ha.

This is going to be a quickie.

Husk starts out like countless other Horror movies do; with a group of young and pretty people on a road trip to the middle of nowhere, all in the name of weekend partying. You already know where it's going, right? Well, when a bunch of dead crows start falling from the sky and take their car out (?!?), they find themselves stranded with nothing around them but but cornfields, for miles and miles.

Being stranded with her isn't the worst thing I can imagine.

Within the endless sea of corn, however, is a creepy old farmhouse with an even creepier secret which involves a sewing machine and some scarecrows, and a bunch of flashbacks of a farming family... I don't know how a haunted sewing machine ended up in an old farmhouse in the middle of a bunch of corn, but I digress.

"Hey there. Whatcha doin'?"

There's also a bunch of scarecrows on the prowl, killing those who defile the sanctity of their corn-home. Once dead, they become zombie seamstresses, and begin making a mask for a new scarecrow to wear... I don't even know what in the hell it all means, it was just kinda neat.

That does not seem like an efficient way to sew.

Husk is a movie that ended up being better than we thought it would be. There was no gratuitous nudity or gore to be had here (although there are some mildly bloody moments), but the atmosphere and storyline were what hooked us. That's not to say Husk is completely original, or that the script was amazing or anything, but some of the story elements were different and they didn't break their own rules, which just stood out to us.

It was interesting to see how they handled Final Girl dynamics in this one too.  I guess that overall it was different enough to keep us watching and not make us regret it. Also, the whole sewing machine thing was pretty neat... and creepy.

"Drink it all, baby. We're heading into that corn."

 

Sure, it's a familiar story and it didn't really push any envelopes, but we couldn't help liking it despite its flaws. We liked this one in that guilty pleasure sort of way, and we just couldn't help it.

We kept this write up very short and sweet, so don't blame us if you watch Husk and hate it... the term Guilty Pleasure absolves us of any responsibility in the taste department.

Tasmin Suresuck Tammin Sursok is a Pretty Little Liar on TV, and a Pretty Little Hottie in this movie. It's hard to believe that she's nearly 30 and can play a High School kid so convincingly... now that's acting talent.