Trailer—Dark Night of the Scarecrow

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.

A gang of armed vigilantes led by mean postmaster Otis P. Hazelrigg (a marvelously hateful portrayal by Charles Durning) track down and kill gentle giant simpleton Bubba (an excellent and sympathetic performance by Larry Drake), who's been wrongfully accused of brutalizing sweet little girl Marylee Williams (appealingly played by Tonya Crowe). The gang are found not guilty of any murder charges, but a while later they start being haunted and picked off by an enigmatic apparition that takes on the unsettling form of a scarecrow. Director Frank De Felitta, working from a crafty and gripping script by J.D. Feigelson, relates the involving story at a steady pace, depicts a strong and vivid evocation of the backwoods small country town setting, and does a masterful job of creating and maintaining a creepy, uncanny, and mystery atmosphere that retains a genuinely spooky ambiguity which keeps you guessing about what's really going on right until the smashing doozy of a surprise twist ending. Moreover, this movie is shockingly violent for a made-for-TV feature: One guy gets mashed to a pulp in his brush grinding machine while a second fellow is buried alive in a corn silo. The uniformly bang-up acting from the sterling cast constitutes as another significant asset: Durning excels as one extremely slimy and despicable jerk of a local mail man, with fine support from Robert F. Lyons as wimpy gas station owner Skeeter Norris, Lane Smith as grouchy farmer Harless Hocker, Claude Earl Jones as excitable mill foreman Philby, and Jocelyn Brando as Bubba's feisty mother. De Felitta and Feigelson deserve extra praise for audaciously presenting Hazelrigg as an oily, secretive, and duplicitous pedophile with an unsavory interest in Marylee (note how the movie begins with Hazelrigg's spying on Bubba and Marylee through a pair of binoculars and Hazelrigg's unsettling confrontation with Marylee in a school hallway during a Halloween party). In addition, there's even a potent central message about the harsh and unfair nature of rural vigilante "justice." Glenn Paxton's supremely eerie score hits the spine-tingling spot. Vincent A. Martinelli's sharp cinematography gives the picture a pleasantly vibrant pastoral look. A highly recommended sleeper that's wholly worthy of its substantial cult status.

I was genuinely spooked and completely on the edge of my seat when I saw this well-made, well-acted little shocker. I was surprised to find that my local Blockbuster carried the movie, so I picked it up. The plot deals with a retarded man named Bubba who is accused of murdering a little girl. A group of four rednecks grab their shotguns and shoot Bubba repeatedly, only to find out later that he was innocent. Soon, a dark figure begins to murder the men one by one. Suspicion falls on everyone in the cast. Believe me, you will be surprise. The bloodiest murder is saved for the conclusion (hint: it involves a pitchfork), but this movie is so eerie and well-made that blood and gore does not matter. Tonya Crowe (as the little girl, Mary Lee) does a fine job with her acting.

"Dark Night of the Scarecrow" is an effective TV horror film. A Halloween viewing would be totally appropriate. Charles Durning plays a bigoted, evil character, who happens to be the local mailman. Obviously he loves his postal job, as he never seems to take off his uniform. Along with three local rednecks they set the story in motion by hunting and killing a mentally challenged man. After the lynch mob mentality has prevailed, they learn they have killed an innocent man, who happened to be hiding inside a scarecrow. The movie is extremely atmospheric, has good acting, and has become somewhat of a cult item. Recommended. - MERK

A group of bigoted locals wrongly blame gentle man-child Bubba (Larry Drake) for the death of a young girl and hunt the frightened dolt down, eventually finding him disguised as a scarecrow in his mother's field. Without giving poor Bubba a chance to explain what happened, the trigger-happy gang fill him full of holes. The ensuing murder trial is a farce and the men are acquitted, but one by one they are menaced by a creepy scarecrow before turning up dead. For my money, scarecrows are every bit as disturbing as clowns, but they don't seem to have captured film-makers' imaginations in quite the same way: there's tons of scary clown flicks (with more and more on the way following the success of this year's horror blockbuster It), but only a handful of scarecrow films. TV movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow, directed by novelist Frank De Felitta, attempts to prove to the boob tube masses that a creepy straw man can be just as terrifying as a grease-painted killer, but fails to do so: the limitations of the small screen format means that there is zero gore, and the film delivers very few genuine frights simply because the victims are all thoroughly deserving of their fates (it's hard to be scared when you're rooting for the scarecrow). It's a shame because the cast is good (Charles Durning is delightfully loathsome as mailman Otis, leader of the lynch mob, who, it is implied, is also a pedo) and De Felitta displays some not inconsiderable skill behind the camera.

i just saw it 2 days ago on TBS with my girlfriend and it's still spooky!!!I cant believe this was a made for t.v movie!!!!SCARY AS HELL!!!Ten time scary than Friday the thirteenth, Halloween, or Nightmare on elm street...This movie, along with "The Shining",prove you don't need lots of pointless blood and guts to give you the creeps...The first time i saw this movie i was around 7/8 in my mom's bed one night and two scenes were forever stuck in my mind...(1)Otis' hate-filled look at Bubba while he hides in the Scarecrow get up (2) the scream that poor Mrs. Ritter yelled when alone with Hazelrig...In fact, I could not finish watching the movie when i was a kid because of Jocelyn Brando's scream scene so i told mom to shut it off...it wasnt till i was 24 i would learn who the scarecrow was - at least i think, i know... great acting by Charles Durning as Otis Hazelrig...an old mailman so cheap he lives in an old folks home and practically lives in his mailman fatigues...He who seems too interested in young Maylee... Awesome scenes...when Hazelrig and Skeeter go the graveyard and dig up Bubba's casket,open it and find what their looking for or what their NOT looking for?...the climactic scene where Hazelrig confronts Maylee for the truth...Is it indeed the girl?...is is the D.A?...or as Mrs. Ritter said "some other justice in the world"...I'm not telling the music just adds to the whole creepyness...that violin gets me spooked everytime... WATCH THIS FLICK NEXT TIME IT'S ON TBS OR TNT!!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!

Spoilers herein. This is very much a TeeVee movie. It has an extraordinary focus on faces, a TeeVee indicator. And it follows the Rod Serling rules. In a theater, you have a captive audience so you can dole out the mystery and solution as you go. In TeeVee land you compete for their attention: nothing can be resolved until the very last minute. You must keep them wondering through all those commercials. So we have 95 minutes of preparation for a spooky end. Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a very good film that has a good cast which includes Charles Durning, Robert F. Lyons, Claude Earl Jones, Lane Smith, Tonya Crowe, Larry Drake, Jocelyn Brando, Tom Taylor, Richard McKenzie, Ivy Jones, James Tartan, Ed Call, and John Steadman! The acting by all of these actors is very good. Durning and Drake were great! The horror and thrills is really good and some of it is surprising. The movie is filmed very good. The music is good. The film is quite interesting and the movie really keeps you going until the end. This is a very good and thrilling film. If you like Charles Durning, Robert F. Lyons, Claude Earl Jones, Lane Smith, Tonya Crowe, Larry Drake, Jocelyn Brando, the rest of the cast in the film, Horror, Thrillers, Dramas, and interesting Halloween films to see around the season then I strongly recommend you to see this film today!

In a small country town, the thirty-six year old mentally handicapped Bubba Ritter (Larry Drake) has the mentality of a child and is the best friend of the young local girl Marylee. When the girl trespasses the yard of a house and is attacked by a dog, he saves her, but is wrongly accused of killing her by her mother. The bigoted postman Otis P. Hazelrigg (Charles Durning) joins three other vigilantes' friends of him and the group executes the poor man, who was hid disguised as a scarecrow in a cornfield. They forge some evidences that Bubba had attacked them, and they go to a trial but they are declared not guilty. They are released, but justice comes from the grave and the men are mysteriously killed, one by one, in the revenge of the scarecrow. "Dark Night of the Scarecrow" is an excellent unknown made-for-TV movie. This gem has potential to become a classic of the genre and certainly one of the best scarecrow horror movie ever made. The supernatural story is great, and the performances of the whole cast is outstanding, highlighting Charles Durning as a nasty scum and Larry Drake in the touching role of a sweet retarded man living in a prejudicial community. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "A Vingança do Espantalho" ("The Revenge of the Scarecrow")