Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!
A lot of American horror movies take place out in the middle of nowhere. There are naturally millions of Americans who live in the country, of course, but Americans are by and large urban and suburban people. I live in a farm community in large part—we’re also home to a large university, but this town made its bones in the agricultural world, and it’s still more or less suburbia. In the summer, you can find corn or soybeans within 15 minutes of my house in literally every direction, and yet I’d be hard-pressed to tell you I actually live in the sticks. The sticks can be scary, and that’s what we’re going to be exploiting in Dark Night of the Scarecrow.
This is very much a Southern Gothic tale of murder and revenge from beyond the grave. I have to say that, good or bad, that’s the kind of thing that I’m going to find interesting. There’s a long history of this kind of horror film. There’s something dangerous out there in the corn fields (or whatever they’re growing in this small Southern town), and it comes from murder most foul and prejudice.
We’re going to open up with the friendship between Bubba Ritter (Larry Drake) and young Marylee Williams (Tonya Crowe). Bubba is mentally disabled and has the mind of a child. On the surface, since he is in his 30s and Marylee is 9 or 10, this looks like an inappropriate relationship, but in Bubba’s world, Marylee is just his friend. There are those in the town who dislike this friendship, though. In particular, local mail carrier Otis Hazelrigg (Charles Durning) is convinced that Bubba isn’t merely touched, but predatory.
So let’s get the evil started. One day, Marylee and Bubba notice that a neighbor has a new fountain. Marylee goes to investigate it and is attacked by the family’s dog. Bubba rescues her, but it looks like he has attacked her. This brings out the vigilantes. Bubba’s mother (Jocelyn Brando) tells him to hide, which he does by putting on a scarecrow costume and standing out in the family field. It doesn’t take too long for Hazelrigg and his posse—Skeeter (Robert F. Lyons), Philby (Claude Earl Jones), and Harless (Lane Smith)—to track down Bubba and shoot him, only to then find out that Marylee is fine and Bubba actually saved her. The four murderers plant a pitchfork on Bubba so they can claim they acted in self-defense (although they have shot Bubba a cop-approved 21 times), and eventually manage to get cleared of any charges.
Ah, but this wouldn’t be a horror movie if Bubba didn’t get his revenge. What we’re going to get is the scarecrow appearing in the fields of the men who killed him, and then those men dying in terrible, very farmer/country-centric ways. Our first victim is going to do a header into his stump grinder, and another will end up buried in grain at the bottom of his silo. Neither of these things are actually spoilers. If you can’t see where they are going once those scenes start, you don’t have much in the way of media literacy.
This is really it—Bubba is murdered and comes back from the grave to get his revenge. There are some unpleasant undercurrents here as it is somewhat suggested that Hazelrigg’s attack on Bubba as a potential child predator is actually coming from the fact that he is a child predator himself. It’s not played too hard, but it’s clearly there and there are hints at it a few times in the film. Someone who wanted to argue this wasn’t the case so that this could get past a censor, for instance, could probably argue it well, but the signs are definitely there.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow is very clearly made for television. There are multiple fade-to-black moments that are definitely for commercial breaks, but they are timed well and appropriately. The bigger tell in this case is that we’re not really going to get a lot of gore. Some of what would be front and center in an R-rated theatrical release happen off-camera here and are implied or suggested by sound more than anything else.
This is surprisingly good, especially for something this sanitized for a television audience. It builds well, and while it is clear where it wants to go in a lot of cases, it’s still worth watching. The last 10 minutes or so are intense, especially for something made for television. There are some genuine threats here, and there’s a great moment when we realize exactly what happens to our last revenge victim—his death is set up well to blindside us much as he is blindsided in the moment.
This is a rare case where I’d love to see a remake. This was solid as something essentially rated PG (it can’t possibly merit a PG-13 rating), but a theatrical release rated R would have a great deal of potential.
Why to watch Dark Night of the Scarecrow: A solid revenge-from-beyond-the-grave story.
Why not to watch: It’s made-for-TV, so the scares are often off-camera.
No comments:
Post a Comment