Transcript of Introduction to The Scarecrow

Hi everyone. Thanks for coming today to this screening of the Kiwi gothic melodrama, The Scarecrow. Being something of a Kiwiphile (I've been to New Zealand four times, mostly to work on The Incredibly Strange Film Festival) I am a great admirer of New Zealand films. During my visits there, I often talk to the locals about movies and inevitably the subject of New Zealand films arises. When I ask them what their favourite New Zealand films are, The Scarecrow is almost always cited as one of the very best.


The film was based on the novel by Ronald Hugh Morrieson, a musician and writer whose biography sounds like a gothic novel in itself. Born in 1922 in Hawera, Morrieson was an only child, indulged by a doting mother and an elderly aunt. He lived in the same rundown old house his whole life, and never left the town of his birth, except for a few nights spent in Auckland. He was a musician who played in local jazz bands and made a living as a music teacher. He also had a reputation as a drunk and a womaniser, evetually drinking himself to death in 1972.


In the last decade of his life he wrote four novels, the first of which was The Scarecrow. The novel was poorly received in New Zealand at the time of its publication, leading Morrieson to correctly predict that he would be one of those romantic fools who is discovered after his death. The people of his home-town were particularly appalled by Morrieson's morbid themes and cynical attitude,and commented, "Why can't you write about nice things." Anyone who specialises in the gothic will recognise this as a familiar lament.


Posthumous recognition has placed Morrieson among the top rank of New Zealand authors and he is the subject of at least one biography. Several films were made of his work. When his house was set to be demolished there was a modest uporoar among the NZ literati who wanted it preserved. A petition was organised to save the house, but a counter petition, signed by the residents of his old hometown, attracted four times the signatures and the house was demolished. There was still a lot of enmity felt towards him - for what reason - we'll leave to your imagination.


The film that you are about to see was directed in 1981 by Sam Pillsbury. At the time i was considered to be one of the most accomplished New Zealand films ever produced, equalled only by Sleeping Dogs and Goodbye Pork Pie. The cast includes Australian actress Tracy Mann and, in the title role, American actor and horror icon John Carradine, whose career spanned six decades and over four hundred movies. At the time of prodution, Carradine was well into his seventies, crippled by arthritis, and willing to work on any film no matter how shoddy, as long as the cheque cleared, which saw him appear in some of the worst horror movies of all time, including Satan's Cheerleaders, Astro Zombies and the abysmal Frankenstein Island. This was undoubtedly his best work of the period.

Freud describes the uncanny as something that is familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time. The German word he uses is unheimlich, which translates into English as the unhomely. I can think of no better way to describe New Zealand, especially as an Australian. It is strangely familiar; the people, the place, the architecture, the type of society, the way of life, yet also strangely unfamiliar, although the unfamiliarity is hard to put your finger on, which only makes it all the more uncanny. There is a strong gothic underbelly to New Zealand, one that Morrieson captures perfectly in The Scarecrow. During my last stay in NZ, a psychotic P (or ice, as it is known in Australia) freak went amok in a 7-11 with a samurai sword. The place is full of stories of bizarre behaviour, grisly murders, and marvellously eccentric characters.

The one gripe that New Zealanders have about Australia is that no one ever visits there. It's all one-way traffic. So having fallen in love with the place, I suggets you consider it as a possible holiday destination. Just remember to stay out of the 7-11s. Enjoy the movie.