Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Day: Halloween 2010 edition!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf or streamed via Netflix Instant and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day.]
I’ve been hearing about this TV movie, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, for a long, long time. I’ve heard it referenced by movie geeks, those nostalgic for the ‘80s and the like for easily half my life.
When I saw it was hitting DVD via one of Big Red’s DVD Picks and Peeks column I figured it’d be a perfect addition to my October run of AMAD.
And boy am I glad I’ve finally seen it. In an ideal world the column would be 31 days of movies like this. Even though the production value is limited by it being a TV movie there’s a surprisingly quality to the entire production, from cast to script to direction to overall tone this is a film that could have easily been a theatrical film. If it had a little more movie money instead of TV movie money it could be something we talk about in the same breath as Something Wicked This Way Comes.
And it’s harsh. Really harsh.
Basically the flick is set in a small town where the Postman (Charles Durning) organizes a lynch mob when the town idiot, a slow Forrest Gump-like manchild named Bubba, brings a bloodied little girl back home to her mother crying and repeating over “Bubba didn’t do it!” Naturally, things don’t look good for Bubba.
Bubba, by the way, is played by a young Larry Drake… yes, that’s right. Dr. Giggles himself. You’d think it’d be creepy with Durant from Darkman playing the dimwitted overall-wearing manchild, but Drake imbues the role with a soft childish sensibility that comes across as sweet, not creepy.
And creepy it could have been… in fact, it’s a small miracle that Larry Drake sitting in a field with a little girl in a cute dress that keeps trying to kiss him on the cheek didn’t come off as creepy.
No, they save the creepy for Charles Durning, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
So, when this little girl wanders into a neighborlady’s yard despite the warnings from Bubba and gets attacked by the neighbor’s dog, Drake bumbles in to save her. The dog attack happens off screen, but it SOUNDS vicious, with her high pitched screams mixed with the angry dog mauling sounds.
The next thing we know, Bubba’s at her mom’s door, holding her crying. She looks dead, covered in blood.
Now, Durning and his pack of good ol’ boys have never liked Bubba. They have vague reasons for it, but I think it boils down to post-high school jock mentality. Bubba is different, weaker in their eyes and they’re very little but grown bullies.
Durning however has ulterior motives. When we first see him in the movie he’s looking at Bubba and the little girl playing in a field. My impression was that he was a nosey character, always trying to inject himself where he doesn’t belong… or perhaps an overly protective respected member of the community.
But a little later in the movie it’s insinuated that he’s a pedophile. They don’t exactly spell it out, but Bubba’s mother says something like “I see how you look at that little girl” and from that point on everything that character does has a gross edge to it. It also has a retroactive effect. Thinking back to the first scene I get the feeling that Durning wasn’t spying on Bubba, but had his binoculars with him regularly to view this girl from afar.
So Durning has another motive to tar and feather Bubba. In many ways Durning’s character is jealous of Bubba and wishes he was in the man’s place, although his intentions are the exact opposite of Bubba’s.
Pretty crazy stuff for the heavy of your family friendly TV movie, yeah?
So, Durning organizes a four man mob to chase down Bubba. Bubba’s mother hears the car approaching and tells her crazed son he needs to “play the hiding game” like he did the last time he was blamed for something bad that happened in the town.
His hiding place is in the scarecrow in the middle of his family field. Unfortunately for him, this time Durning and Co bring dogs who sniff him out. With a terrified Bubba dressed as a scarecrow, up on a post, Durning essentially sets up a firing squad and executes the man. The others aren’t as gung ho about killing him, but react by firing their weapons when Durning starts shooting, making them all complicit in the murder.
It’s only after they shoot him that they get a radio call telling them that the girl isn’t dead, but has just woken up at the hospital and told them that she was being attacked by a dog and Bubba saved her. Now they can’t get anyone to look the other way and plant a pitchfork on Bubba which ends up being the key to getting them off the hook for the killing later. He had a deadly weapon and they had to defend themselves, right?
From here the film turns into a bit of a mystery. You have the four wrongfully freed men, Bubba’s furious mother who screams out in the courtroom that there other forms of justice than the law and a pissed off District Attorney who vows to find any shred of evidence that the men are lying.
When one of the men, Lane Smith who you might remember as Perry White on Lois & Clark or from his work on From the Earth to the Moon, Son In Law, The Mighty Ducks or the original V TV series, sees a mysterious scarecrow planted in his field another player enters the mystery. Could it possibly be the spirit of Bubba seeking revenge? The little girl claims to still talk to him and that “he’s only playing the hiding game.”
Then the men start dying in ways that could be accidents (including one particularly horrible wood chipper death) and Durning and crew get more and more panicked.
What is it? Well, the cover kinda spills the beans a little, but it’s still unknown until the last few moments just who’s in the scarecrow outfit.
I will say I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get more creepy scarecrow action. Almost everything we see up until the end is either off camera or a glimpse of a shadow here or there. But the final few moments of the film are so eerie that I forgive them for not going crazier with the scarecrow action.
There’s a quote on the back of the DVD case from Ray Bradbury with the praise “Terrific script… terrific film!” I should have known I was in for a good movie when I saw that and having now watched it, I concur. There’s surprising deep characterization and a terrific small town vibe that you get from the best work of both Ray Bradbury and Stephen King.
The film is also helped by the time period where TV movies can still have some production value, before everything started looking like either a soap opera or a shot-on-video sitcom. While it’s not quite as cinematic as Spielberg’s DUEL it’s not too far off.
Final Thoughts: This is one of the highlights of the 2010 Halloween AMAD run for me. I’m happy with the blind buy on DVD, I’m happy to have finally seen it and I’m happy that it was so damn good. I’m shocked someone has tried to remake this as a theatrical feature. If someone could keep that balance of innocence and horror, cast some great character actors and not turn it into a piece of camp there’s a possibility that a remake could be as good or better than the original. Wait, wait… Nevermind. I’m fine with this one. Rogue Pictures, stay away! Lionsgate, I see you sniffing around here. Forget I said anything!
Currently in print on DVD: YES
Currently available on Netflix Instant: NO
Upcoming A Movie A Day Titles:
Saturday, October 30th: SCARECROWS (1988)
Sunday, October 31st: RAZORBACK (1984)
Playing a little catch up today. Will watch Scarecrows this afternoon and hit you with my review this evening! See you then!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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