Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Directed by Frank De Felitta
This might be a first for my blog, in fact it is. This is a made for TV movie! I recently found it on tubi streaming for free and I’ve heard good things about it so fired it up. There are some pretty good made for TV movies out there so it was only a matter of time that I got around to reviewing one. A slasher/revenge TV movie is kind of interesting, especially since it was on network TV, CBS to be exact. The over the top kills and gore of the genre doesn’t really lend itself to 1980s broadcast television haha.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow starts off with Bubba, a mentally challenged man playing in a field with a small girl named Marylee, they’re picking flowers and singing. A group of guys from town comment about Bubba hanging around kids and mention that he’s dangerous. On their way home Marylee and Bubba stop at a house with a fence and Marylee goes in the yard to play at a fountain, Bubba warns her not too, she does it anyway and a dog comes out and attacks her. Bubba breaks through the fence and grabs Marylee. He takes her home and her mother opens the door. Bubba says while crying “Bubba didn’t do it!” The guys from town believe Bubba killed Marylee so they gang up, grab guns and hounds to hunt him down. Bubba runs home and his mother tells him to hide. The group of guys consists of Postman Otis, gas station attendant Skeeter, and farmers Philby and Harliss. Bubba’s mother tells them to leave and that she hasn’t seen him. They follow the dogs to a field with a single scarecrow on a cross. Otis discovers that Bubba is actually the scarecrow and they fire rounds into him. Bubba dies and a voice on the radio says that Bubba saved Marylee, she survived and she was mauled by a dog. Feeling regret and panic, Otis places a pitchfork on Bubba’s body and they leave. With Bubba dead, they have a trial. The judge throws out the case because there isn’t any evidence against the lynch mob. Bubba’s mom shouts out that there is justice outside of the law, and their time will come. Soon after the scarecrow turns up at each of the men’s houses. One by one each of the mob meets their violent ending and Bubba gets justice for his wrongful murder.
The acting in this movie is actually great. Larry Drake does an exceptional job as the mentally challenged Bubba. You feel his pain when he brings Marylee to her mother. Charles Durning as Otis was great as well. He plays a reprehensible asshole so well. I really hated him and couldn’t wait for his comeuppance. Harliss is played by Lane Smith, he’s probably most known for playing the coach of the Hawks in the Mighty Ducks and Walter in Son in Law. He’s always great at playing a jerk, and in this movie its more of the same from him. I kind of see Smith as an underrated character actor, he really deserves more attention for the work he put in before his death. Even the little girl that played Marylee, Tonya Crowe was passable, child actors can be terrible so I’ll give her props for her role.
In slasher movies the death scenes are the big talking points and this movie had some inventive kills. Harliss falls into a woodchipper, and we get a cut of someone putting ketchup onto a plate. That made me laugh, such a funny cut scene. Philby is next, he’s scared off into a silo. Once in the silo the door is locked and grain piles in, drowning him in the grain silo. After those two die, Otis and Skeeter dig up Bubba’s body to find it is still in the casket, that he really is dead. Skeeter freaks out and says he’s turning himself in. Otis panics and kills Skeeter with a shovel. Otis is chased by a front loader, and while he’s running away he quickly runs into the scarecrow, soon we see that he is impaled by the pitchfork. The deaths weren’t graphic, it was made for TV so I didn’t expect much. They were imaginative so I’ll give it credit for that. My only issue is that the scarecrow doesn’t do the killing, its more of a ghost or presence you never see. The post is kind of misleading that way, which is disappointing.
The soundtrack was effective. It had some scary original music that really increased the creepiness of this movie. I think my favorite aspect of this film is the feeling of fall and Halloween, it really captures that. You see cornfields, turning leaves, pumpkins and Halloween parties. It just got me excited for the season and made me smile. The camera work was also above what I thought it would be. Nothing distracting and some nice visuals, like when Philby is in the silo. Just nice effective work.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a slow burn, it relies more on atmosphere than kills and gore, which is rare in the slasher genre. I loved the creepiness, subtly of the scares and the acting. The fact that the movie was shot in 17 days is impressive, because it is so good. My only issue is that the scarecrow doesn’t do more, which is misleading from the poster. I really liked this movie though, it really is one of the better slashers, even if it isn’t your typical formula. I would suggest this to anyone that likes horror in general. It is suspenseful and creepy, the feeling of fall just puts you in the mood right off the bat. I give this a solid B+, it was fun, creepy and well acted.
31 Horror Movies 