Jonathan Kieran

Americans tend to favor mundane objects and mechanisms as horror movie staples: porcelain dolls; circus clowns; abandoned houses; even possessed cars. Chilling films (the cheesy and the elaborate) did not always need a vampire or a serial murderer to make audiences squirm. The spookiest motif, to me, is the killer scarecrow. Let’s face it—a scarecrow languishing above a farmer’s sea of crops rarely manages to frighten pesky birds from pilfering a meal. However, as a kid, these cornfield creeps petrified me. Maybe it was because I hailed from a region rich with farmland and the specter of a lonely stick-figure drooping above the silent acreage was innately haunting. They seemed to wait, motionless and patient, counterfeit humans that grimaced or grinned, deliberately crucified and stuck in the ground to keep unwanted pests “away”.

Needless to say, I wasn’t one of those kids who enjoyed running roughshod through rows of Summer corn. Come to think of it, corn fields—even without scarecrows—are enough to give anyone the heebie jeebies. ANYTHING might be hidden within those depths and if you go in, it isn’t always easy to find your way out again.

I’m starting to think that farmers might be the real monsters at the bottom of all this. 😁

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[ THE WEDNESDAY BOX, a dark fable for all ages by Jonathan Kieran is slated for international release April 22, 2025. ] 

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