Dark Night of the Scarecrow

A rural posse, led by a morally bankrupt mailman, decide to hunt down a simple-minded man-child, allowing their hatred for him to motivate a heinous cold-blooded murder, four guns unloading on a helpless individual over a crime he didn't commit. But what they aren't prepared for, even after a court of law lets them off, is the return of the scarecrow.

*****

To me a really good-to-great horror film has to have aspects that captivate or compel me. Mario Bava’s visual power, Argento’s visceral outbursts in beautiful color and crazed developments inflicted upon those who are unaware of the evil in their midst, Gordon’s willingness to go to those dark places and show how his characters respond to the ugliness that usurps them, Cohen’s absurd plots within realistic settings and everyday characters experiencing extraordinary situations, Hooper’s assault on the senses in how his characters encounter the macabre through startling horror, Romero’s examination of a world gone to hell and his characters succumbing to their dark half, etc. 

I think what makes Dark Night of the Scarecrow so effective, so chilling, and so compelling is its building of suspense through what you don’t see (the killer) and how guilt/fear can work against those who take law into their own hands without thoroughly thinking things through. Hollywood has been churning out horror films (as has the Asian film market which I think has mastered it) based on a ghost seeking revenge for a wrong that happened to them in life. Similar somewhat to a slasher film, the killer picks off its victims one by one while they are unaware that doom was coming for them. What I felt has been so lasting and spooky about this film is how we know that those who took the law into their own hands will get their just do. We are aware that perhaps Bubba is coming and Durning will get what's coming to him. So it is all about how to build each death scene where the creeping feeling of death is somewhere close, with each character that was a part of the posse receiving the sentence they're due.

What the opening of the film does is establish what has been happening to a gentle-hearted, simple-minded man-child who is best friends with a little girl with whom he shares about the same level of maturity and competence. If anything Bubba (Larry Drake, of Dr. Giggles and LA Law fame) is perhaps less mature and competent than the little girl. Charles Durning is immediately shown with binoculars spying on the two of them, but question is why? Why is Durning so invested in these two? Does he really care about the little girl or is he just a busybody, sadistic bully with racism towards special needs people? He calls Drake a blight but there’s no sign that he has ever did anything wrong. Drake considered an insect by Durning worthy of permanent extinction he tells farmer Lane Smith. Smith, with beer in hand, is ready to go “teach Bubba a lesson” when Durning tells him that he was with the little girl again. 

So what this does is establishes that there’s a distinct and troubling disdain for a mentally retarded and wholly innocent man with the intellect and behavior of a ten year old. He wouldn’t harm a soul. When the little girl wants to sneak through a picket fence into a yard she isn’t supposed to, Bubba knows it’s wrong and refuses to do the same. What the little girl doesn’t realize is that a guard dog is in the yard and it lunges at her, attacking her into injury. Bubba rescues her and takes the little girl to her mom’s, letting her know he was not responsible. Smith flies over to the post office to tell Durning that “Bubba has killed her” which is a falsity. 

Not getting the right details leads to an innocent man being murdered without a proper process of law. So Durning, who has been waiting for a moment like this because his heart is so black and his soul is so cruel, gets a chance to put together a posse of rural townsmen to go after Bubba as he was obviously responsible for the missing girl. Hiding in a scarecrow, Bubba is trapped and the men, packing guns, kill him. A gas station attendant and a feed operator are among the posse. They seem to be salivating at the chance to hunt down Bubba and render their brand of justice against the poor guy. The film really builds sympathy for Drake as he runs through the woods in absolute terror as the dogs in the back of a truck driven by the posse follows close behind. The wreath of flowers put around his neck by the little girl still around Bubba as he falls to the ground, sucking wind and knowing that the bad men are closing in. 

This film, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, builds a sympathetic character that doesn’t deserve his mistreatment. You have the men with no right whatsoever chasing after Bubba, using the little girl’s injury as an excuse to go after someone they despise (just because he’s “different” than them) and hurt him. Durning is perfect casting as the loathsome lead villain. He plays one of those small little men with a small little insignificant life and through the misery he inflicts (or imagines inflicting) upon someone even smaller than he is, there is a bit of satisfaction that can be assured through the pain he offers. There’s a sense in the dialogue shared by Durning and Lane in their first scene together that they have picked on Bubba before. They consider him a nuisance unworthy to exist, and so it was only a matter of time before the right set of circumstances provided them the ammunition to act out to their own volition. 

An indictment on vigilante justice, bullying, unfair criticism, racism against the mentally handicapped, the justice system (the vigilantes get off on a technicality despite their involvement in the murder of Bubba), Dark Night of the Scarecrow has a lot of weaponry to use to unleash the dead spirit of a wronged victim, and the justice not exacted in the court room will be visited upon the posse in other ways. That is why I’m such a horror fan. This genre has a way of allowing the unjust to get justice, the Scarecrow karma itself returning to haunt and execute those who committed a crime (21 bullets went into Bubba while he hung there on that wooden cross, Drake’s frightened eyes and quivering, the slight cries of his innocence.)

What makes Durning so entirely despicable is how, after he learns of Bubba’s innocence, he plants a pitchfork on his dead person hand, absurdly proclaiming on the stand in a court of law how the posse had no choice but to fire on the innocent man. All the prosecutor could do was point out the obvious but the judge throws out his case due to no evidence or witnesses who could corroborate Bubba’s murder and their participation in it.

Durning’s Otis Hazelrigg is even accused by Bubba’s mom (Jocelyn Brando) for unseemly looks at the little girl, Marylee (Tonya Crowe). It makes sense, if you think about it. Marylee was friends with Bubba so Otis couldn’t be, and with his binoculars, it is a rather disturbing thought, but just the same possibly accurate. With a bust of Napoleon (!), photo of Patton, and this gun case inside this itty, bitty boarding house room he lives, Otis is a pathetic creep. Lane Smith’s farmer, Harliss Hocker, sees a scarecrow out in the yet-to-be-harvested field, asked by his wife why it would be out there. That night he would hear a noise in his barn, go to investigate (big no-no), go into a loft to follow this sound, trip over some hay, attempt to hang from a light, and fall into a running brush machine which would saw him up good. While the gore is obviously not shown due to this being a CBS movie, it doesn’t have to be. That the machine was off when his body is discovered lends itself to the idea that someone (or something) contributed to his death. With the scarecrow showing up in a field near Philby’s (Claude Earl Jones) feed station, the remaining members of the posse are starting to worry. Gas attendant Skeeter (Robert F Lyons) is basically an easy-to-goad foil for Otis while Philby is a victim of his own guilty conscience. Knowing that Philby and Skeeter are starting to crack, Otis confronts Bubba’s mom, and this is where it seems to go in his favor. He sneaks up behind her, scaring her; threatening to kill her if she doesn’t stop tormenting them, she suffers a coronary! So Otis turns on the gas of the stove, and with the fireplace burning strong, the house explodes. Are his problems solved? Not by a long shot.

Philby’s fate in a feed silo is rather ingenious and horrifying if you think about how that would be to watch as it comes down on top of you, with drowning the result. Just an extended arm and flashlight remaining in sight. 

Then  there’s Skeeter who is working on a car when Otis pays him a visit. Convincing Skeeter to accompany him to Bubba’s grave, they dig it up and take a look inside the coffin. When it appears Skeeter is so hysterical he would go to the local authorities so it would all end, Otis decides to rid himself of this problem as well. But seeing Marylee in the middle of the road, following her into a field where he crashes into a tree, Otis wants his hands on the little girl, believing she is the one behind all the trouble caused to them. Then comes a farming machine chasing Otis…right into a scarecrow, except this time the pitchfork won’t be just a prop.

Then there is that marvelous final scene. Marylee and the scarecrow share a flower. The way the scarecrow moves itself to face her, that sound is real spooky stuff. She continues to talk to “Bubba” as the credits roll.

No matter how much Otis tries to cover up his crime, he will not escape what he deserves. The horror genre has a way of letting us see vengeance unfold, even in ways quite unique. While it is obvious with the final reel that the scarecrow is in fact responsible, for a while there it was possible that perhaps someone else might have done it. That wouldn’t have been as satisfying, though, as Bubba getting revenge on them for what they did to him. That the final kill had the irony of using the pitchfork was another, among many, slick touches the film applies.

To really get under our skin, the posse, after being found not guilty due to nothing evidentiary against them, exits the courtroom to a cheering group of townsfolk. All smiles, the four are in a bar celebrating, while an awakening wind stirs to a roar outside. Later on Otis rubs it in by having Bubba’s mama sign a package and warn her to leave them be. These touches are ways to really infuriate the viewer and get on the side of the scarecrow. It works. To do what they did and go on with their lives like nothing happened, the horror genre had a way to not allow what real life might: the posse will pay.