Horror Movie Review: Husk

Husk

Starring: Devon Graye, Wes Chatham, C. J. Thomason, and Tammin Sursok

Directed by: Brett Simmons

Written by: Brett Simmons

Production Company: After Dark Films

Release Date: January 28, 2011

Five friends are off to...somewhere...when crows start slamming into the windshield sending the car careening into a ditch and wooden pole. One of the five quickly goes missing and as the other four come to, two wander through a cornfield toward an old farmhouse figuring their friend went there. Soon, fast moving scarecrows are slashing up the twenty-something year old friends.

The atmosphere of Husk is pretty effective creating a strong sense of isolation, though that could easily be dispelled if our victims stopped and thought about what they were doing.

That's the one disappointing part of the film. Our victims don't seem to think through what they are doing and some of their decisions don't make much sense. I thought there would be a reason for the refusal of two of our victims to leave via the car for which they found keys. Brian said he didn't want to leave his girlfriend Natalie, which is fine. He and other lead Chris clearly don't think the best of each other so when Chris reports he saw her dead and has become one of the scarecrows, Brian refusing to believe him kind of makes sense. But why wouldn't the more bookish Scott leave with Chris? And no attempt was made to explain why Scott is seeing flashes of the past.

But even these don't detract from the mood, the creepy scarecrows, or the cool concept of what is going on. The scarecrows hammering nails into their fingers as claws helps show that there is no salvation for these converted victims. And our victims, clearly being city folk, out of their element in a cornfield, confident to the point of arrogance that all they have to do is find the house and all will be ok, criticizes most of our self-indulgent, flippancy toward our lives. Sometimes the best answer is to just run full speed straight ahead, but how often do we over think it and we veer off into missing opportunities and sometimes even ruin, leaving us as nothing but...Husks.

Related Trailers

Scar - Devon Graye also stars in Scar. Joan Burrows (Angela Bettis) narrowly escapes death by murdering the sick serial killer who held her prisoner in his underground chamber of horrors. Sixteen years later, Joan returns to her hometown to visit her niece (Kirby Bliss Blanton), only to discover that a new batch of teenage victims has surfaced. The crimes carry the killer's signature, but with the man presumed dead, the police begin to wonder whether Joan herself might be involved.



Sutures - C. J. Thomason also appears in Sutures. Jason London stars as a harried detective on the hunt for a madman in this gory horror thriller about a demonic surgeon (Carlos Lauchu) run amok with his scalpel in hand, all in a play to score profits on black-market body parts. But there's a plot twist perhaps no one suspects: At one time, the pitiless predator was someone else's prey. Allison Lange, Kate French, Andrew Prine and B.J. Britt co-star.



Albino Farm - Tammin Sursok also starred in Albino Farm. Decades of religious fanaticism in an Ozark Mountain town have produced an in-bred community of albino misfits who have become the stuff of legend in surrounding areas. Now, four college pals are trapped there when their research trip goes awry. Stuck in a land of pigment-impaired predators, the group struggles for survival in this horror fest.