For generations, it was an urban legend that lived in the nightmares of children. Now, the season to rejuvenate the tale will revive a town’s darkest fears. With the Scarecrow Festival on the horizon, school teacher Aaron Harris is doling out punishment for six students serving detention, including the moody Tyler, Goth girl Nikki, wrestling team captain Daevon, and straight-A student Jun. Their task: help Aaron’s ex-girlfriend Kristen fix her family farm before it’s sold. But the cornfields circling the farm come with a legend-and Tyler takes macabre delight in recounting the tale: It never sleeps, it never dies, it can’t be stopped, hear their cries. The Scarecrow lives to kill us all. Keep it buried in the fall… When the kids play a terrifying game of cat and mouse in the cornfield with what they believe is a wild animal, Kristen tries to convince them that the Scarecrow is a very real creature of fierce strength and power, rejuvenated by the blood of its prey-and proof comes all…

Two teens, Marcy (Lanie McAuley) and her boyfriend Chad go to a cornfield to scare their enemies Nicki and Tyler for posting sex pictures of them on the internet. They head to an old barn where they break the floor and crash into an unknown and dark basement. Marcy injures her thigh and Chad tries to help her. Mysteriously, her blood soaks up below her and a hand comes out and grabs Chad's head. Marcy screams.

In the next scene, Aaron Harris (Robin Dunne) takes six teens: Tyler (Richard Harmon), Nicki (Julia Maxwell), Daevon (Reilly Dolman), Calvin (Iain Belcher), Beth (Brittney Wilson), and Maria (Nicole Muñoz) to an abandoned cornfield to take the scarecrow for the 100th Scarecrow festival. Tyler and Nicki tell the rest that the place has an legend resulted from many deaths of people who used to live there. Tyler chants, "It never sleeps, it never dies, it can't be stopped, hear their cries. The Scarecrow lives to kill us all. Keep it buried in the fall..." When they arrive, Aaron meets his ex-girlfriend Kristen Mills (Lacey Chabert) and gets out of the bus to talk to her. As he talks, Nicki takes the keys left in the ignition lock of the bus and takes her cellphone out that Aaron took away earlier. Meanwhile, Kristen tells Aaron that she invited Eddie (Carlo Marks), Aaron's former friend who liked Kristen, to help with the scarecrow. Eddie comes along and tries to leave after seeing Aaron, but couldn't restart his car. The teens go to the scarecrow as the adults stay behind, arguing. As Aaron, Kristen, and Eddie meet up with the teens, Calvin is strapped to the scarecrow as Tyler and Nicki are missing. Aaron, Kristen, and Eddie try to take him down, Beth is grabbed by an unknown force and dragged into the cornfield. Aaron tells Maria, Daevon, and Calvin to stay where they were as he, Kristen, and Eddie goes to save Beth. After they leave, Calvin runs off to escape. Kristen finds Beth, who is still alive, but is dragged herself. After she is helped, everyone (minus Tyler and Nicki) runs to an deserted house next to the field. Something tries to bash through the door and they try to hold it off. Then Nicki's bloody body is thrown over the window, before being dragged back out again.