Dark Night of the Scarecrow is the first movie I think of when talking about made-for-TV horror movies. It’s a beloved example of the genre.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a supernatural revenge flick that first aired on CBS on Saturday, October 24, 1981. That is exactly the right time to air such a show.
Let’s see how it stacks up to other made-for-TV horror movies like The Intruder Within, Midnight Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, Satan’s Triangle, Killdozer, Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell , Invitation to Hell, Summer of Fear, Savages, Moon of the Wolf, The Initiation of Sarah, Crowhaven Farm, A Cold Night’s Death, Snowbeast, The Possessed and Chiller.
Full spoilers will happen.
Dark Night Of The Scarecrow
Dark Night of the Scarecrow maybe inspired Ben Stiller’s Simple Jack. Larry Drake goes “full retard” in a country setting, wearing coveralls. He picks flowers with a little girl played by Tonya Crowe (Knot’s Landing). They make leis for each other. Crowe insists upon kissing Drake on the cheek once she bestows the flower necklace upon him.
Charles Durning watches all of this through binoculars. He is a postman with a pith hat. His outrage is supposed to be villainous, but thanks to Hollywood, our view of such situations is tainted. We somewhat sympathize with his concern.
Durning immediately goes to visit his buddy, a farmer played by Lane Smith (The Distinguished Gentleman). Smith works on his woodchipper while Durning contemplates taking care of Drake and his play sessions with Crowe once and for all.
“He’s a blight, like stinkweed or cutworm, that you spray and spray to get rid of, but it keeps coming back. Something has to be done, but it has to be permanent.”
To his credit, Lane identifies that as a bit of an extremist position…but he’s okay with a good old-fashioned beating. A proper bully has a code, after all.
Meanwhile, Drake and Crowe walk along, singing and holding hands. Crowe wants to stop and look at a gnome garden. If Durning and Smith want to beat someone so badly, they should start with the person who owns the gnome garden. No excuse for that kind of tackiness.
A dog mauls Crowe after she pantomimes smoking a bowl with a gnome. This leads to Drake carrying the seemingly dead girl home to mom, screaming, “Bubba didn’t do it!”
Fun fact, the mom is played by Jocelyn Brando, sister of Marlon Brando. She probably could have doubled for Brando in Apocalypse Now. Film her in shadows and have her mutter “the horror, the horror” and no one would know the difference.
Dark Night Rises Of The Scarecrow
News of Crowe’s injuries travels fast. Durning assumes Bubba did, in fact, do it. So, he puts together a team, Marvel-style! Durning rounds up Smith and two other yokels played by Robert Lyons (Death Wish 2) and Claude Earl Jones (Miracle Mile). Together, they form the world’s stupidest, out-of-shape vigilante posse.
As long as they don’t have to chase anyone more than ten feet through a beer-and-salami emporium, they should be fine.
Brando tells Drake to play “the hiding game” while Durning and crew search for him. Durning, Smith, Lyons and Jones arrive soon after. Durning has full-on little-man syndrome and throws around all the weight his postman’s uniform can muster.
“The only thing official you ever done is lick stamps,” Brando says.
The Dad Bod Squad uses dogs to track Drake. He hid himself by dressing as a scarecrow and hanging himself on a pole in the middle of a field. That’s a pretty advanced camouflage strategy for a supposed retard. I would have, like, ducked behind a curtain or something. I guess I know where that puts me on the IQ scale.
The Dad Bod Squad shoots Bubba roughly twenty times to avenge Crowe. They then get a call on their CB radio. Crowe is fine. She had been attacked by a dog and was unconscious. Bubba actually saved her.
Oops…
Dark Night Of The Living Dead Scarecrow
Durning, Smith, Lyons and Jones go to court for the Drake shooting, but they have an ace up their sleeve. They planted a pitchfork in Drake’s hand and claimed self-defense. The prosecutor’s incredulous response is…
“He might as well have had a feather duster against a firing squad!”
Nevertheless, it’s the word of four liars against a dead man, so case dismissed. Brando has a problem with the court’s ruling. Does the judge think he is a district liberal legislating from the bench or something?
“No, it’s not right to let them go! They killed my boy! They may think they are getting off, but there’s other justice in this world besides the law!”
Durning is so bothered by this declaration that he checks his watch and announces he needs to go because the boarding house he resides in is serving fried chicken for lunch. He then laughs. We only wish he had a moustache to twirl.
That night, the Dad Bod Squad celebrates their acquittal by going to the bar, getting drunk and having a good old time. These guys are superb villains. I hate them more than The Eagles, man — both the band and the football team.
Dark Night Of The Scarecrow And Mrs. King
Crowe visits Brando. She wasn’t told Bubba is dead. She wants to see him.
“Where’s Bubba?
“Bubba’s gone…”
“Gone? Where?”
“Well, where they can’t hurt him no more…”
Crowe still doesn’t get it, however. Maybe she is also retarded?
Meanwhile, life goes on in the small town. Durning continues to deliver the mail. He even pauses to read people’s issues of Boudoir Magazine before putting it in their mailbox. I got to hand it to Durning. He is doing work, man.
Lyons continues to fix cars, poorly. We must also mention his terrible cap. It is red with white polka dots. It looks like something a jiving black dude would wear to a funk convention.
Jones continues to grind corn at the local feed mill. Smith continues to work on his woodchipper. While doing so, Smith notices a scarecrow in the middle of his field.
Smith confronts the rest of the Dad Bod Squad about this. They insist none of them did it. They theorize the prosecuting attorney did it. He is trying to smoke them out. Durning tells the other three to play it cool, West Side Story-style.
Smith goes home. His woodchipper turns on by itself. He investigates and manages to fall into said woodchipper. As Smith takes a header into the machine, the film cuts to a dollop of strawberry preserves splatted on Durning’s breakfast plate.
Clever edit, Dark Night of the Scarecrow. I like the cut of your jib.
Dark Night Of The Creeps Scarecrow
The Dad Bod Squad pokes around to identify exactly who is onto them. Durning visits Brando and asks her pointed questions in case she is the one. He doesn’t get the answer he likes.
“You don’t fool me. I see how you look at that little girl. You think you got the rest of them fooled, but I know what you are. Stay away from her…”
Once again, Dark Night of the Scarecrow nicely ups the ante. This makes Durning’s character a villain on another level. He’s not merely a bully lout. He’s a pedophile lout.
Jones’s day ends at the feed mill. He exits the building with some pigs in the foreground. Thematically, it is because he is a pig. Yet, he’s really not that fat compared to the average 2025 male. Fat in the 1980s is totally different from fat now. People are literally getting harpooned in the middle of the street these days.
Jones sees a scarecrow in the field. Uh-oh, he’s next!
But first, we attend a community Halloween party. The whole town looks like it is there, and it looks like it might be the most fun Halloween party ever. Everyone is in costumes. Adults dance and drink spiked punch. Kids bob for apples.
What happened to us? We used to be a proper country.
Durning peeks through the eyes of a skull decorating a window. Nice shot. He confronts Crowe. He tries to get her to admit someone is messing with the Dad Bod Squad. Crowe says she knows what Durning and his friends did to Bubba because Bubba told her.
“Bubba’s dead!” Durning says.
“I know,” Crowe responds.
Dark Knight Night Of The Scarecrow
The movie picks up speed. Durning confronts Brando once more. He scares her so bad she dies from a heart attack, so Durning blows up her house with the old gas-stove trick.
Things are really spiraling out of control for Durning.
Meanwhile, Jones is killed by an unseen assailant who chases him into a grain bin and buries him with corn. Not to be that guy, but a person probably could survive that situation. I’ve been in many corn bins. You could move to the edge and keep stepping up as the bin fills.
The danger with corn bins is getting caught in the suck zone when they are being emptied.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow accounts for this, however, by mentioning Jones died of a heart attack after being trapped in the bin. Well played, fellows.
Durning tells Lyons they are the last two left, and Lyons does a solid freak out about the fact a retard is apparently back from the dead and taking revenge. Durning says he will prove that is not the case. A man of science, he proposes they dig up Bubba’s dead body.
Upon digging up the coffin, the two discover Bubba still in his grave. Lyons freaks out even more. He wants to turn himself in. Durning has no choice but to brain Lyons with a shovel. As for the terrible hat Lyons wears, it sticks to the shovel after Durning clobbers him.
What a horrifyingly humorous touch.
Durning pays for his crimes. He tries to run Crowe down with his mail truck and gets chased by a driverless tractor with a chomping front-end loader. While fleeing through a corn/pumpkin field, Durning impales himself on a pitchfork held by a hanging scarecrow.
The movie ends with the scarecrow handing Crowe a flower.
Dark Night Of The Scarecrow
Frank De Felitta directed Dark Night of the Scarecrow. He was a novelist, screenplay writer and a director. For example, he wrote The Entity novel, wrote the screenplay of The Savage Is Loose and directed the Sharon Stone film Scissors.
De Felitta is a steady hand in the director’s chair. He worked well with cinematographer Vincent Martinelli to craft a well-done, nice-looking movie with a degree of style. Earlier, we referred to Marvel. Martinelli was a Marvel pioneer. He worked on both The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk TV shows.
J.D. Feigelson wrote the screenplay. We just did another one of his movies in this series, Chiller.
All in all, little exists to complain about with Dark Night of the Scarecrow. It retraces its steps a few too many times, but other than that, it’s about as well done at all levels as a made-for-TV horror movie can be done. Its concept is creepy enough to be fun for kids, and its themes are deep enough to engage adults.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow is an easy film to watch as it deftly handles formula. The sturdy foundation that holds everything up is Durning. He turns in a fine performance as a despicable man that the viewer wants to see pay for his crimes.
No shade here. Dark Night of the Scarecrow shines bright.
