Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

Honestly this started out really well and then just went into a completely boring drawn out territory the rest of the way through. Don't understand how they titled this film when you seriously never actually see Bubba as the scarecrow but just his spirit getting revenge in full death scenes. Really don't understand the cult following in this mediocre film.

Greetings from Lithuania."Dark Night of the Scarecrow" (1981) is a movie made for TV. It's genre is horror, and it's a nicely made one. It's not particularly scary, but it's a well made movie. It's nothing original or greatly made, but it does it's job for 1h 36 min of keeping you involved in a basic story, with OK acting, nice script and a very tight directing.Overall, there isn't much to say about this 80's made for TV horror flick. If you like not complicated horror movie plots, OK acting, simple story but with simple and very good direction - "Dark Night of the Scarecrow" is surely to be check one. It's superbly well paced and you very worth watching it once.

(34%) A very nearly decent early 80's horror TV movie that sadly falls into nothingness largely due to being too tame and ends up feeling like a slightly more violent feature length episode of the twilight zone, only not as smartly crafted or as good. The basic plot premise really isn't that bad, but the characters aren't formed well enough and there's just a feel, mainly during the second half, that this isn't going as far as it needs to make a big enough impact during a time when ever increasingly violent (and better) slasher movies littered cinema screens. With modern remakes of almost every classic horror film endlessly getting made, this for me is something that is far better suited for a new lick of blood. Don't hold your breath.

A quartet of backwoods vigilante buffoons chase a mentally disabled man, Bubba, through town after they believe him to have kidnapped a young girl. They find him disguised as a scarecrow in a field, and execute him, only to receive immediate news that the girl is alive and well, and that he actually saved her life. Oops. After being acquitted of the murder, all four men are plagued by a bullet-ridden scarecrow appearing on their property, and talk that Bubba is somehow stalking them beyond the grave.There is truly something special about the television horror films of the late 1970s and early 1980s— "Home for the Holidays," "Trilogy of Terror," "Race with the Devil," just to name a few— for whatever reasons, the horror films that made it to the small screen during this era were consistently well made and legitimately suspenseful. In fact, a lot of them have the production values and feel of a major studio picture, and "Dark Night of the Scarecrow" is no exception here. Directed by Frank De Felitta, who also brought us 1977's "Audrey Rose," the film boasts impressive cinematography and some playful and inventive terror sequences as the redneck geezers/wannabe vigilantes get their just desserts. Since it is a television film, the violence is obviously minimized, but the implications during each of these payback scenes are grim, and mostly revolve around farm machinery— ouch.Charles Durning's turn as the reprehensible small town postman and cold-blooded bigot is effective in that his character is truly reprehensible, and Jocelyn Brando (yep, Marlon's sister), is wonderful as the spiteful mother of Bubba. An understated and spooky synth score accentuates the eerier moments here, particularly the wide shots of the ominous scarecrow (or Bubba...?) hanging in the distant fields.While the overall premise may not be particularly original ("Les diaboliques" comes to mind), this is a remarkably well put-together thriller that is miles about standard television fare as we've come to know it. Sophisticated production values and De Felitta's attention to detail are impressive; in fact, had I not known it was a made-for-TV movie beforehand, I may have not guessed it at all. A truly worthy genre entry, and quite frankly much more elegant than half of what the eighties had to offer in terms of slasher films. 8/10.