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.

In the next Star Trek film slated for 2011, Leonard Nimoy's intrepid Spock, again, travels back in time this time to warn the crew of the Starship Voyager of the dangers of the Bad Lands, thus sparing them their encounter with the Caretaker and thus sparing us the tedium of Ethan Phillips' Neelix, the Jar-Jar Binks of the Star Trek universe. I can dream, can't I? It is Ethan Phillips that stars along Jamie Alexander and Brian McNamara in David Benullo's Hallowed Ground, an insufferable exercise in rolled out horror clichés. Please, Ethan, this is what we get from an MFA from Cornell? Hallowed Ground, director David Benullo's second foray into directing since his nearly impossible to track down and deeply creepy (not in a good way creepy) incest fantasy, Cupid, left me with a few questions. Where in Kansas does corn grow on vines? How does one fall from a walk on role in I Know Who Killed Me to a starring role in Hallowed Ground (McNamara)? And how does crap like this get made in the first place? Does the pitch—or pitchfork— for an abortion like this go something like, "Yes, it's Children of the Corn meets Dark Night of the Scarecrow, you know a dense, indecipherable, mish-mash of every horror or slasher film made in the last thirty years." Who thought this was a good idea? At least Cupid had the paraphilic angle (I am truly praying Mr. Benullo doesn't have sisters), Hallowed, however, is early (pre-sobriety) Stephen King vomited up as uninspired horror, though a truly inspired and fervidly presented middle finger to rural, agricultural and Christian Americans. I don't know the man, however, my guess is he's a run-of-the-mill USC or NYU film school type, a typical, unthinking, and blinkered, North Easterner that has never spent time in the Midwest nor interacted with the people of rural America he so crudely portrays. It's a strange kind of bigotry. I'm not personally a religious man, but I find the way Christians are portrayed in this film deeply offensive. Would Mr. Benullo portray Muslim Americans in this kind of light? Unlikely. So that's it. Red state America is populated by mullet sporting, human sacrificing, scarecrow worshipping, Talaxians that grow mutant corn which grows on killer vines. Stay away from this garbage.

Most reviews make this out to be horrid. I watched it because of Jaimie Alexander and Hudson Leick. I wasn't expecting very much, especially with plot keywords like "Killer scarecrow", and it's not my particular favorite horror sub-genre.In the end, it wasn't that bad. It was somewhat predictable, falling prey to many clichés of the genre. It had a couple twists to make it seem to break away though. Overall the acting was OK...some of the townspeople seemed a little cardboard, but the leads do a good job.It could have done with a few less scenes of people running through cornfields, but at 83 minutes with credits, I think it needed all the time it could get. If you like Jaimie, it's a good view. While the storyline is a little generic, overall it is mostly put together well and better than some things out there.

Every week I stop into Blockbuster and rent the new direct to video horror movie and every week I'm pretty much disappointed. Most are shot with non-actors in lead roles, some with home video equipment. Some are boring and some are painful. This is the rare gem of a movie in this field of crap.For a direct to video feature, the movie has scope. Yes, the CGI isn't top notch but great CGI doesn't make a great movie.This is a horror movie with complex characters that does not conform to a specific genre's rules. It could easily have been a scarecrow slasher movie with lots of dead teenagers but it tries for more.I applaud it for that.For those direct to video junkies like myself, Hallowed Ground has great production value, great acting (for the genre), and best of all...An original concept.