Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

donbanf **This review contains many spoilers**. I was around in 1981 and remember this movie being advertised. I could not remember if it was a theatrical or TV movie. All I remembered was something about a scarecrow comes to life and exacts some sort of revenge on the townsfolk. But I never saw the movie until now (October 2016). Great little made for TV movie, above average as many TV movies have been. Its theme is actually like an old folk tale/myth. An avenging spirit comes back to right the wrongs. There is a hint/atmosphere of paganism here with the elements of the harvest, fall, scarecrow, pumpkins, farms, etc. that have been used in other films and it is used here to great effect. In many ways, it reminded me of an extended episode of Night Gallery. The photography, music, production values and just the right touch of eeriness hearken back to that series of the early seventies. Unlike some of the NG episodes, the night scenes in this were actually shot at night and they look really good. Light and shadow, wind and movement are used here to very realistic effect. I'm actually glad I didn't see it until now as the film was digitally restored and put on DVD in 2010. Some small bits were restored that had been cut from the original TV airing. After seeing the film, I watched it again with director and writer commentary which I can recommend. Much of the scenery is beautiful, with wide shots that are more like a theatrical film. The director said he did that purposely to lift the overall quality of the film. Note: the movie was shot in Southern California, north of Los Angeles. It could pass as a Midwestern corn growing state though, except maybe the hills/mountains are a giveaway, i.e. not flatlands and plains. Larry Drake and Charles Durning I recognized almost immediately as character actors I'd seen in countless shows and although I was not familiar with the young actress who played Marylee, she was quite a good little actress, conveying a mature and very knowing quality, wise beyond her years without coming off as phony. Her dialogue and her insistence that Bubba is still alive were eerie and I kept wondering through the whole film whether she really was talking to Bubba and he wasn't dead (as she tells Otis) or just making it up a la wishful thinking. Drake is fabulous as the mentally challenged Bubba who is wrongly blamed for a little girl's death. Turns out she doesn't die and Bubba didn't hurt her either, but by then Bubba has already been executed vigilante style by a posse of four local townsmen in a scene that's surprisingly graphic for a TV movie. You can see poor Bubba's blue eyes peering out of the scarecrow he's hiding in and the fear in them is extremely real and haunting. You don't easily forget it. The musical score is quite good and eerie in its high pitch, sad and piercing. It's an unusual score and one that stays with you. The low budget production values just add to this film oddly enough. They make it better. What it doesn't show in direct view, e.g. Harless falling into the wood/brush grinder, the sound effects make up for and fill in the imagination. The machine obviously was real and makes that scene all the more harrowing. What kept me guessing all along was, you can often hear a sound of someone walking and the Philby character glimpses a shape, some figure going through a doorway, but the figure is just hard enough to make out, it becomes one of the most goose bump inducing scenes in the movie. Is it the scarecrow come back to life or is it someone else (human) exacting revenge on Bubba's behalf? Bubba's mother is almost certain that justice will prevail as she talks about there being more kinds of justice in this world than the law, implying that the four men will get what's coming to them but also raising the possibility that she or someone else is avenging her son's death. That question is answered and revealed in a great two part ending, first where the tractor clearly starts itself (gearshifts move by themselves) and the really best part, the scarecrow once again turning and looking at Marylee, after those footsteps can be heard again. It is Bubba after all and he's gotten his revenge. It's a great ending, chilling and something I had to go back and view again. As another reviewer said, this one is best viewed late at night, alone.

Rainey Dawn Been quite a while since I've watched this one. Watching it again I must say it's a good old school horror film - and it was made for TV.The movie has a pretty basic story line to follow for a "slasher" TV movie without being "silly" - it is enough to keep me interested. The "monster scare factor" is pretty decent. There is not an over abundance of scarecrow horror films out on the market so this movie gets bonus points for being a scarecrow "monster" film.It's always nice to see Charles Durning on the screen - he's a good actor. He plays a "bad cop" role in this movie. Without giving the film away, Otis P. Hazelrigg (Durning) and his fellows did something they really should have not done - covering up their act - which leads to the "scarecrow".Good film for the Halloween season and a late night flick. A worth while horror movie in my opinion.7.5/10

TheBlueHairedLawyer Most made-for-TV movies such as IT are missing a good plot like their books had, or just aren't very good. Dark Night of the Scarecrow is amazing for its time and budget, not only horrific but also pointing out the prejudice towards mentally challenged individuals. In a small farming community lives Bubba Ritter, a mentally challenged 36 year old man who is kind and enjoys playing with the town kids. He is the scapegoat for the men in town, especially the postman Otis, who is secretly a pedophile and tries to make his friends assume Bubba is a child molester. Bubba rescues Marylee, a little girl, from an attack dog, and ends up getting shot at by the men, who think he molested and beat her. When they learn that he actually saved her life, they win their trial and vow never to speak of the ordeal again. Bubba's mother is devastated over the loss of her son; she gets a visit from Marylee who has no idea Bubba is dead. Mrs. Ritter doesn't have the heart to break the news; she just says, "he's gone where they can't hurt him no more". It isn't until a scarecrow appears and men begin to be murdered that people question their wrongdoings... It's both a sad and beautiful story of friendship; Bubba dies after saving Marylee and still continues to protect her from the molesting postman even after his death. It's also a very eerie horror story, the death in the wood chopper is quite disturbing, as are the others. The acting of all the characters is very good, especially Bubba's mom and the postman. It was directed by the author of the novel Audrey Rose, which was also made into a movie very popular in the late Seventies. I highly suggest you watch Dark Night of the Scarecrow, it's worth it!

Spikeopath Dark Night of the Scarecrow is directed by Frank De Felitta and written by J.D. Feigelson and Butler Handcock. It stars Charles Durning, Larry Drake, Tonya Crowe, Jocelyn Brando, Lane Smith and Claude Earl Jones. Music is by Glenn Paxton and cinematography by Vincent Martinelli.Small town Americana and Bubba Ritter (Drake), a friendly but mentally challenged man, is falsely accused of attacking and severely injuring young Marylee Williams (Crowe). Four of the town residents, with hate and ignorance driving them on, hunt down Bubba and find him hiding as a scarecrow in a field. Murdering him, they claim self defence and walk free from court. It's not long afterwards, though, that the men start to see a scarecrow in their midst…Some things from movies just stay with you from when you were a wee youngster, I still remember the first time I heard the anguished cry of Bubba Ritter stating that he didn't do the crime he was being hunted for. Dark Night of the Scarecrow stood out by some considerable mile as one of the best TV horror movies I saw as a youth, not for things that I would later appreciate in film making as I got older, but just for sheer terror of a scarecrow stalking his prey for divine retribution. How wonderful to revisit the movie three decades later and find that it is still one of the best TV horror movies out there.Oh it doesn't terrify now, though it still packs a sense of unease and keeps scarecrows firmly in the realm of creepyville, but it has a style so sorely lacking in many of today's horrors. There is no need to bludgeon us with slash and stalk, showing us gore front and centre, the makers here are subtle, refusing even to put the scarecrow in the limelight like Michael or Jason. There's a smart ambiguity about the supernatural elements, keeping the mystery element strong as the guilty men begin to crack and head towards their real judgement.Simmering away nicely in the narrative is of course the vile stench of bigotry, and the pain inflicted by such narrow minds. There is also a dark thread left dangling that suggests one of the guilty men is impure of thoughts towards little Marylee, one of the very things he whipped up as reason to hound Bubba for. Some thought went into the screenplay, and it's credit to the writers that it never becomes a moral crusade, while the crafting of the lovely innocent friendship between Bubba and Marylee is beautifully born out by actors and technicians alike.Durning and Drake dominate the movie with classy shows, impressive in Drake's case as he is only in it for a short amount of time, but the work of young Tonya Crowe puts her in the club that houses best child performances of the 80s. Her reactions to Bubba and Otis (Durning) naturally call for different human emotions, and she in turn nails the aspects of youthful innocence and mature awareness of who the monster actually is. The photography is textured, the music equally so, and there's even some shards of humour and irony along the way.I can imagine many of today's horror fans going into Dark Night of the Scarecrow and being very disappointed not to get a Voorhees type movie, while some more sensitive viewers may find the portrayals of backwater folk as being ignorantly stereotyped by the makers. It isn't for every horror fan, without a doubt, and clearly it's not perfect, but to those who loved it back when it first showed, those who are jaded by how this type of sub-genre of horror has evolved into bloody overkill and remake/sequel hell, then Dark Night of the Scarecrow is in fact a minor classic. 8/10