I told Pete I was going to do three of these in a row. Let’s see how I do.
Straw Man
The camera follows a crow as it flies above a corn field in the height of fall. It lands on a wooden sign with a painted cartoon scarecrow. The sign says
“pumpkin pickin
fried dough
petting zoo
corn maze”
A car drives past. The camera begins to follow the car. It parks and a family gets out and walk towards the fair.
It’s a mixed race family. Their son doesn’t seem very excited and is constantly on his phone. His mother teases him, “You know, if you ever looked up from that phone you might experience life. Who knows, you might even see a human female.” The son shrugs and goes back to his phone.
The parents are loving it. They pet all the animals and eat all the food. They pull their son into the corn maze.
The son follows but he keeps looking down at his phone. He looks up and can’t see his parents anymore. He pulls up google maps on his phone and it obviously is no help. He starts to get concerned and starts to run in the direction he imagines they went. He continues and ends up walking in circles. He is getting more and more scared when the maze opens up revealing a scarecrow.
It’s a dead end and as the son tries to go back, he is stopped by a group of skinheads. Steve is the head of the group. Kelly is his girlfriend, Mike his best friend. They say a few racist things toward the teen then Kelly hits him. He stumbles backwards and falls, hitting his head on a rock. Mike is horrified. He goes to help when Steve says to leave him. Kelly whispers something in his ear. Steve grins, “I love you.”
The parents are searching the maze desperately. They come upon the opening and see their son tied up with the scarecrow, a swastika carved into his chest.
The next day the skinheads are day drinking and watching TV. The news has a report about the kid who ended up dying from his injuries. Mike is freaking out. Steve tries to calm him down. It’s only temporary as Mike can’t find his Vitezi Rend metal, it must have been knocked off in the struggle.
Mike sneaks back into the maze. There is police tape all over the place. We see the the scarecrow hanging over Steven as he searches through the dirt. He finds the metal, laughs and stands up. The scarecrow is missing.
Mike doesn’t notice and tries to make his way out of the maze. The scarecrow jumps down in front of him. Mike is frozen in fear. The scarecrow grabs him by the neck and lifts him into the air. We hear his neck snap.
Kelly is tweeting racist memes to black celebrities. The scarecrow appears behind her. It picks its leg up unnaturally high and steps on her, crushing her head into her phone and into the ground.
Steve is leading a march to protest the removal of a confederate monument. The one hundred schlubby white guys yells about how the Jews won’t replace them. The scarecrow runs towards them dual wielding sickles.
It’s a bloodbath. Limbs and blood flies out from the crowd. There are no survivors.
The End