Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

So much average

Simply A Masterpiece

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

When the film begins, Bubba (Larry Drake) is playing with a neighbor girl. She's young and he's a mentally challenged adult. Well, for some odd reason, several of the locals hate Bubba and Otis (Charles Durning) enjoys stirring up hatred against the man. Soon after this little scene, the girl is attacked by a vicious dog and Bubba saves her and brings her home to her mother. He's hysterical and soon all sorts of crazy rumors start that HE attacked the kid and killed her. But she's only slightly hurt and before long, folks are running about town looking for Bubba. Otis' little group is primed for a hanging...all due to Otis' drumming it into their dumb minds that Bubba is a danger to them all! As for Bubba, he hides in a most unusual fashion...pretending to be the scarecrow on his mother's farm! The evil quartet soon find him and don't give him a chance to surrender and shoot him 21 times!! Amazingly, the local judge refuses to indict them for murder!! So, it seems that the four scum-bags have gotten away with it.Soon after this incident, a scarecrow appears on one of the four men's land...and within a short time, he's dead...supposedly by accident. And, soon after that, the same thing happens again. At this point, Otis isn't about to take any chances and begins killing off anyone who could possibly be behind the two deaths. What's next? See this cool made for TV horror movie.Overall, this is a very well made and highly entertaining film...far better than the norm for such a picture. The acting, writing and scare factor are all there...and the film is well worth your time.Interestingly, a few years after this film was made, Larry Drake went on to become a regular on "LA Law" playing another mentally challenged man. I am pretty sure this film must have helped him land this role.

no, basically 'Dark night...' is way too dull and silly to be impressive. The premise, that of a mentally handicapped man being the unjust victim of vigilante-ism, is a good one, but straight away scenes drag on and on and on and lots of details are rather unbelievable. Also, the movie seems to want to play several genre-cards at once; drama / thriller / slasher / revenge-flick / ghost story... I'll admit, sometimes the most unusual of combinations can get away with it somehow, but certainly not this one.The gang of vigilantes just seems to keep getting back together until all of them are killed, and there is no police anywhere to be found. How Mrs. Ritter handles the devious mailman Otis P. Hazelrigg (great name!) is pretty smart and even the supernatural guidance for Marylee from Bubba could have worked well. A couple of scenes did work well enough if considered individually, but altogether it became a bit of boring mess - I'm sorry to say, because it has potential.4 out of 10.

Man, Charles Durning's Otis got full use out of that mailman outfit. He probably even slept in it, if the character ever stopped running around for a couple of hours to actually sleep.Dark Night of the Scarecrow was an easy watch, mercifully though, because even in 1981 it was nothing new and it relied heavily on the horror concept of that era that I despised.Spoiler Alert!...but then, it's been 33 years, so whatever. You won't see the title character in action for 99.5% of the film and that has always irked me. I know it's supposed to be a type of suspense, but I have forever wanted to see the monster/beast/killer on screen more than off. This one even takes the cake as it doesn't show the scarecrow for all-but 10-seconds in 96 minutes. Hey, at least show him chasing the remaining victim in the climax!Oh, and I know it didn't have to do with the miniscule budget. It had the budget enough to show the "killer" running amok. Heck, he was in just a cheap scarecrow outfit – that couldn't have cost more than 10 bucks and they already had the actor who probably didn't cost much more.Anyhoo, in a "Frankenstein-type" setup, a "slow" 30s man, Bubba, attempts to protect his very young friend from a dog attack and the girl is rumored to be killed. Four hillbillies take murderous revenge on Bubba – who was hiding in a scarecrow getup - only to find out following the girl did not die and Bubba was actually innocent. Some magical wind arrives in the town the day the four men get acquitted from one of the most hilarious, albeit unintentionally, on-screen trials and us horror fans know what's coming next.Not the worst I've seen by far, but, like the trial, there are some more unintentionally hilariously scenes that make it almost recommended, like: the town's one mailman – and you'll know this because he never takes that outfit off and only drives the "company car," can close up shop at any moment and keeps a loaded gun in the drawer immediately underneath the front counter. In fact, that's the only object in that drawer. And someone's trapped in an empty silo, but is being drowned by grain. As creepy as the scene might be, he could've easily ridden it up to the top.It's for free on YouTube, currently and if you have absolutely nothing else to do and want to reminisce about the early 80s horror TV programs, you could do a lot worse.* * *Final thoughts: Never once heard of this (TV) movie if not for a friend watching it on his computer while we chatted online. Laughably, I saw all what he was telling me throughout our conversation, especially the "slow" character in overalls.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) *** (out of 4) Very effective made-for-TV movie has four locals killing an innocent man who they thought killed a child. A short time later all four are let off by the court system but soon they start to fear that the dead man has came back for revenge. DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW has one of the best reputations of any horror film from this era and it's easy to see why once you've viewed it. It's one of those rare cases where a film's reputation is actually worthy of all the good things you've heard about it. Director Frank De Felitta does a very good job building up a rather creepy atmosphere that he captures right from the start and continues up to the rather chilling final shot. The film is rather unique as it doesn't contain any gore and what's most rare for this period is that it actually takes its time building up the characters and their fears. It takes nearly twenty-minutes for the man to be killed and then it takes quite a bit of time before the revenge starts. There's some pretty good moments involving the scarecrow even though it's not used as much as some might think it would be. The opening murder sequence is extremely well directed and the shots of the eyes through the mask were very effective. The film also benefits from some very good performances with Charles Burning leading the way as the main bad guy. Robert F. Lyons, Claude Earl Jones, Lane Smith and Larry Drake are also good in their parts. The film contains some pretty good cinematography as well as an effective music score. All in all this here is certainly one of the better made-for-TV movies and it's a good example of why violence and gore isn't needed to tell a great and effective story.