“HALLOWED GROUND” (2007)

Starring: Jaimie Alexander, Hudson Leick, Brian McNamara, Chloe Moretz, Nick Chinlund, Ethan Phillips, Jim Cody Williams & Tamara Clatterbuck
Written & Directed by David Benullo

Polly Staffle Rating: ** (If I gave half stars, this one would get two and a half.)

The small town of Hope in the film “Hallowed Ground” isn’t exactly named appropriately. Hopeless might be a better fit, especially if you are an outsider. Get stranded here and any hope of leaving the place alive is nothing more than wishful thinking. The farming community, where everyone knows your name and all the houses and buildings are painted yellow, was founded in 1896 by a crazy preacher named Hathaway. In order to protect the town’s crops of corn, Hathaway offered human sacrifices to the lord. So nonbelievers, supposed sinners and outsiders got theirs via crucifixion. The town’s people dressed the “evil doers” as scarecrows, nailed them to crosses and hung them up to die in the “Hallowed Ground” of the cornfields.

Of course all that craziness is in the past, or so it seems, when Liz (Jaimie Alexander) finds herself stranded in the hillbilly settlement. As in any typical horror movie, Liz’s car breaks down and she will have to wait till at least the next day before it is repaired. She wanders around town, completely out of place, looking like a lost alternative girl from the 1990’s stuck in the 1890’s. But soon Liz finds out she’s not the only outsider in Hope. While at a local eatery, Liz becomes friends with Sarah (Hudson Leick), who is a tabloid journalist doing a sensational piece on the town.

Sarah fills Liz in on the town’s history and updates the audience on what happened to Hathaway. Turns out that blood thirsty do-gooders from a neighboring community came over and crucified Hathaway and burned him alive. Legend has it, his body was destroyed, but not his soul. Liz and Sarah then proceed to the place Hathaway was murdered. They make a spooky scarecrow, nail it to a cross and prop it up so Sarah can get a good cover photo for her publication. Little do they know, they’ve just resurrected Hathaway’s crazy biblical ass. His spirit takes over the scarecrow and proceeds to crucify Sarah and chase Liz around town.

So far “Hallowed Ground” has set itself up to be a good slasher. The scarecrow is creepy looking, he can’t be killed, and he carries a pitchfork and stomps around like Jason Voorhees. On the other side is actress Jaimie Alexander in the lead. She’s a perfect Scream Queen. Prior to this she was strong in the otherwise ho-hum horror movie “Rest Stop” and she’s a bad ass here. When push comes to shove, she picks up a shotgun, shovel, pillow, pitchfork or whatever is handy to defend herself and pulls a “When will they Shoot?” Ice Cube - “stalkin’ ... walkin’ in (her) big black boots.”

But instead of sticking to old trusty, writer and director David Benullo abandons the slasher idea after about 30 minutes and jumps subgenres a number of times to deliver a film that never decides what it wants to be. (Yeah, I know the slasher subgenre is extremely clichéd and been done to death, but I always enjoy them when they are done well.) Benullo’s decision to set his audience up for a slasher and then switch is fine by me, especially if he is going to deliver something original. But that’s not what happens here.

Instead, Benullo proceeds to borrow from a long list of movies we’ve seen before. The scarecrow gets discarded on the porch of an old house as Hathaway starts doing some body jumping. It also turns out the freak of a preacher prophesized Liz’s visit to Hope a century ago and the plan was for her to become impregnated by a holy man in the town so Hathaway could take over the soul of the baby. So now, Liz’s struggle is no longer a fight for her life against a slow walking maniac, it is a battle with an entire town that thinks she should be a willing participant in having a demonic baby. Will she get out of town alive? Will she be gangbanged by a bunch of redneck farmers? Will she end up crucified on a cross? Will she have an immaculate conception and donate her body to the cult to give birth to a supernatural corn-eating menace to society?

I will not reveal what happens, but will say at times I was reminded of not only “Children of the Corn” due to the cornfields and cult town, but also “Jeepers Creepers” and its sequel (the scarecrow and a cornfield chase scene), “Dark Night of the Scarecrow” (a pitchfork death), “Bless the Child” as well as others (the chosen female to give birth to a special child), “The Evil Dead” (demonically possessed plants), “The Birds” and “The Dark Half” (attack crows) and a few others I’m sure I forgot.

I will also say, despite the subgenre switch, the similarities to other films, plentiful plot holes and the fact I was taken aback by a few unnecessary CGI moments, somehow “Hallowed Ground” was able to keep me entertained through its swift runtime of 83 minutes. It actually has a suspenseful moment or two, it offers a handful of chuckles and, like I said before, Jaimie Alexander provides enough rough-and-tumble fierceness that she could probably bring down Michael Myers. So much so, it’s actually a shame Rob Zombie didn’t cast her as his Laurie Strode in his remake of “Halloween.” Alexander gets backed up for a portion of the film by Brian McNamara (“I Know Who Killed Me,” “Arachnophobia”). He’s good too, doing his best Michael Parks’ impression as a decent sheriff.

Overall, I think Benullo did a fairly good job as a director, delivering a fun and watchable straight-to-DVD release. But the script here is really weak. This was his directorial debut, so I’d definitely be interested in seeing his next project, but oddly enough, he got his start in the film world with screenplay and teleplay writing. (He wrote for MTV’s “The Head,” USA Network’s “The Dead Zone” and penned Disney’s remake of “Around the World in 80 Days”). Maybe for his next effort in the horror field Benullo will stick to a subgenre. Had he let his scarecrow cause a bit more mayhem and then had his Scream Queen duke it out with the psycho, I’d have been completely happy. As is, “Hallowed Ground” is a quasi-slasher standing on hollow ground. Because of this, many will be torn on whether they like it or not and plenty more will simply hate it.

- CCF, October 2007

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