By Robert Scucci | Published 21 seconds ago Having grown up in Milford, Connecticut, one of the urban myths that shaped my teenage years was the legend of the Melon Heads. Zion Hill Road, only a couple miles from my childhood home, was our unofficial landmark. My friends and I would drive out there for the sole purpose of scaring the living daylights out of each other. As a rite of passage, I got the classic setup: get out of the car, go explore the woods, hear the engine rev, and watch my friends drive off laughing. I paid that forward more than once because that’s what you do when you’re bored in the suburbs. When I found out that a 2024 film called The Melon Heads: House of Crow saw a quiet release, I hit play immediately because why wouldn’t I? Not knowing that Melon Head lore extended past Connecticut, I was thrilled to learn about other regional variations on the story I grew up celebrating. The Melon Heads: House of Crow pulls from Ohio folklore and builds a backstory around Dr. Crow, a mad scientist who allegedly never existed, but was said to have conducted experiments on orphaned children that resulted in hydrocephalus. Their enlarged heads and violent behavior make them the perfect subjects for an urban legend that refuses to die. Melon Heads Aren’t Real, But They’re Certainly Terrifying Playing out like my teenage years, The Melon Heads: House of Crow follows college students Ada (Alicia Marie Spurlock) and Kaylee (Tara O. Horvath) as they research urban legends for their school paper. They already know about Dr. Crow (Branislav R. Tatalovic) and approach the assignment with journalistic curiosity without thinking of any potential dangers awaiting them. Brett (Rob Jaeger) and Oz (George Tutie), who are in the same class but assigned a different legend, decide the Melon Heads are far more interesting and set out to one-up Ada and Kaylee by investigating the woods themselves. Ada’s older sister, Joan (Amanda Collins), warns them to stay away because she encountered the Melon Heads years earlier, an experience so traumatic that it drove her friend to suicide. Once the students commit to poking around Dr. Crow’s supposed stomping grounds, they eventually uncover his secret lab, and things immediately go sideways. Tapping into the real-life mythology I remember so fondly, The Melon Heads: House of Crow quickly turns into the blood-soaked nightmare my friends and I imagined while cruising the backroads looking for cheap thrills. Things take a turn, though, when the bulbous-headed creatures start behaving more like standard movie zombies , which shifts the tone from folklore horror to familiar survival fare. A Fun, Low-Budget Trip Down Memory Lane GFR SCORE I’ll admit that the only reason I fired up The Melon Heads: House of Crow was because I thought it was cool that someone finally made a movie about the bizarre hometown folklore I grew up with. But the real terror of the Melon Heads comes from being 16, hyping yourself up, driving to creepy places, and doing whatever you can to traumatize your friends for the love of the game. While I can’t fault writer and director Eddie Lengyel for leaning into the mythology, I wish we got more of an origin story instead of a by-the-numbers “run from the scary thing in the woods” horror movie. A low-budget effort that reportedly raised around $5,000 on Indiegogo, The Melon Heads: House of Crow is a fun indie attempt that leaves plenty to be desired, but the creature effects are surprisingly solid given the limited resources. Will you watch it if you don’t have hometown nostalgia keeping the flame alive? Probably not. But if you’re like me and want to see creative liberties taken with a legend that’s already ridiculous on its own, you won’t regret burning through this one for the pure novelty of it. The Melon Heads: House of Crow is streaming for free on Tubi. Related Topics: Source: https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/horror/melon-heads-house-of-crow-review.html