The haggard Luisa Yates comes down looking for her coffee and finds servant girl Mary Jo still in bed. Luisa whacks her with her cane and chases her out to get the eggs.

Luisa’s husband farmer George, working on the truck, watches her go into the barn.  He continues watching through a knothole in the wall.  Not condoning his voyeurism, but it is understandable as Mary Jo is young, cute, and not a fan of the bra.  She is coquettishly played by 22-year old Patricia Arquette, 3 years before her breakout in True Romance (back when she was Rosanna’s sister, not the other way around).

When she comes out with the eggs, he sends her back in to milk the cow.  George and Luisa figure they got themselves some free help as they hold Mary Jo hostage on the farm threatening to tell the police that she robbed the Stop & Go.

When George begins awkwardly hitting on her, she tosses a bucket of milk at him. Luisa hears a commotion in the barn, so George whacks Mary Jo in the head with a bottle to shut her up.  Whiskey bottles have the same effect on her noggin as on mine and she staggers out of the barn.

Mary Jo manages to escape into the cornfield, but leaves a trail of blood.  She collapses in front of a scarecrow with a clown mask and hallucinates him reaching down for her.  She passes out and the Yates find her.

The blow to the head seems to have knocked about 50 IQ points out of her as she suddenly seems two cans short of a six-pack, and still two cups short of a bra.  She keeps talking worshipfully about her man who is so big and strong and will make love to her.

That night, George dreams of her, wakes up to hear her laughing and dancing outside.  He sneaks out and follows her into the cornfield.  She starts flirting with the scarecrow.  George again tries to make his move, but she brushes him off.

The next day, she is dressed more girlishly and says she has a date with her fella that night.  That night she goes to the scarecrow again.  This time, his eyes open and he really does respond to her caresses.

He who boinks behind the rows.

Luisa catches Mary Jo making out with the scarecrow, who has returned to his pole.  Luisa repeatedly runs him through with a pitchfork to prove to Mary Jo that he is made of straw.  She is surprised to see real blood pouring out of his chest.  Then she is surprised to see real blood pouring out of her own chest as Mary Jo impales her on the pitchfork.

Mary Jo runs off into the cornfield singing.

The actors all pull off their parts very well, but the writing was a little off.  For example, it is never clear if Mary Jo became so child-like after the bottle to the head, or was she always like that?  It would have been interesting if that was an act to lure George & Luisa to their deaths, but there is no sign of that as she skips into the cornfield still acting like a 9 year old girl.  A hot, hot . . . no, I can’t even finish it.

Post-Post:

• This is James Tugend’s only writing credit.  He had some producing credits 25 years before.  So what was he doing for the time in between?
• Tom Holland also directed the dreadful Lover Come Hack to Me.  He both wrote and directed the major guilty pleasure The Langoliers.