Though the 1970s is rightly regarded as the golden age of the made-for-TV horror movie, the '80s hardly came up short with a number of memorable chillers that ranks with the best of them. One of the very best is Dark Night of the Scarecrow, aired shortly before Halloween in 1981 (in some markets just after a rerun of 1980's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with Jeff Goldblum). Essentially it was the closest thing to a heartland American slasher film you could see on the small screen at the time, with a potent revenge body count story that left an impression on countless young Gen X viewers. Since then it's had a long and healthy life on home video, aided by the numerous scarecrow-themed horror films that followed in its wake.

In a small Southern town, mentally disabled Bubba (Drake, pre-L.A. Law and Darkman) lives with his aging single mother (Brando, sister of Marlon) and has a close friendship with young Marylee Williams (Knots Landing's Crowe). Some of the locals don't look kindly on that bond, especially hateful postman Otis Hazelrigg (Durning), who knows how to rile up his buddies Skeeter (Lyons), Philby (Jones), and Harliss (Smith). One afternoon Bubba barely saves Marylee from a vicious dog attack, but Otis believes Bubba himself is at fault and rallies a four-man lynch mob. Hiding behind his house dressed as a scarecrow, Bubba is gunned down in cold blood but framed with a pitchfork to get Otis and his cohorts off the hook in court. Soon the perpetrators are dying at night via any farm machinery in the vicinity, and Otis tries to figure out who might be responsible among the numerous people who could be out for blood.

A true case of lightning in a bottle when it comes to made-for-TV movies, Dark Night of the Scarecrow was the brainchild of writer-producer J.D. Feigelson (who wrote Horror High and directed the 1971 oddity The Windsplitter) and was beautifully directed by author-filmmaker Frank De Felitta (author of The Entity and Audrey Rose), who also directed The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan and Scissors. Everything clicks here including a great depiction of the banality of evil by Durning and a short but intense performance by Drake, whose cry of "Bubba didn't do it" became an instant classic quote. The excellent, creepy score by Glenn Paxton is a major asset as well, and following a swift release on VHS by Key Video, the film became regular Halloween viewing for years and stands as one of the decade's most-loved made-for-TV horrors along with Don't Go to Sleep and This House Possessed (both of which are still way overdue for good video releases).

After shopping the film around to several labels, Feigelson ended up licensing it to VCI for special edition DVD and Blu-ray releases in 2011. The transfer was a revelation at the time and still holds up extremely well today, easily surpassing the broadcast and VHS versions. In a slightly controversial move, that release added back a bit of footage during the climax showing... well, to avoid spoiling things, machinery operating by itself, hammering home a point left more suggested in the original version. Audio comes in English DTS-HD MA 5.1 or mono options with English or Spanish subtitles, plus a thorough and great commentary by De Felitta and Feigelson charting the film's course from a proposed indie feature to a wildly overachieving TV project. "Bubba Didn't Do It: 30 Years of the Scarecrow" (31m41s) features Feigelson, De Felitta, Crowe, Stuart Gordon, Aaron Crowell, and unit production manager Robert J. Koster covering the long process of getting it off the ground at CBS, the casting, the locations, and the film's legacy. Also included are the initial broadcast promo, a re-broadcast promo, a reunion Q&A (46m4s) with Feigelson, Crowe, and Drake, and a production photo gallery (10m3s).

In 2022 (six years after De Felitta passed away), Feigelson delivered a direct-to-video sequel, Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2, which... was not received as warmly, to put mildly. One could argue that the original had a bit of an influence on Pumpkinhead, but this one takes from that latter film far more dramatically for a rote, extremely uneventful story with a slight connection to the first film. Here single mom Chris (Wedding) and her son Jeremy (Shurr) are hiding out in the boonies with the strange, creepy Aunt Hildie (Dines) while Chris is set to testify in court against a high-powered mobster. Meanwhile Jeremy becomes attached to the property's scarecrow, which seems to have a life of its own and does Hildie's bidding against anyone she feels has wronged her. And that's about it.

Feigelson's film made it to Blu-ray and DVD as a standalone edition at the time, with the digitally-shot production looking about on par with other recent indie horror films (i.e., very clean, slick, and sharp, which is a good or bad thing depending on your taste). In 2024, VCI issued a two-disc special edition featuring one UHD and one Blu-ray, the latter being the exact same 2011 Blu-ray of the first film (something hard to parse out from the packaging). While the original Blu-ray managed to break the norm at the time as a good-looking release free from the label's insistence of slathering heavy noise reduction all over the place, the UHD isn't so lucky; the first film has undergone some strange processing that looks like a mixture of upscaling, aggressive DNR, and a very intense HDR grade that certainly pops but can also make reds and blues look fiery at times. The film grain is either obliterated here or turned to mush, but if you don't mind this looking closer to the recent James Cameron-ish side of things, you'll be okay with it. Interestingly, the sound here actually is a noticeable upgrade with an active, crisp quality that makes you appreciate the details of the score and sound effects, and the commentary and subtitles have been ported over. A new commentary by Cereal Midnight's Heath Holland, film historian Robert Kelly, and Made for TV Mayhem's Amanda Reyes is a great new addition; they all know their stuff and are big fans of the film, with lots of info about the cast, the state of made-for-TV movies at the time and the ratings breakdowns, the limits of horror on the small screen, and tons more. The second film looks great (shot in 2K and bumped up here by the looks of it), and it comes with a solo, fairly sparse Feigelson commentary in which he shares some thoughts on how the film came together, what he was aiming for compared to the earlier film, and how he put it all together.

UHD

Blu-ray

Reviewed on October 12, 2024