Into the Dead of Night: Dark Night of the Scarecrow

Lane Smith hears something in the dark in the dead of night.

Being the movie-phile that I am, I just love "happy accidents." There are those times where you literally just stumble onto a movie by accident. So I have this video tape with a completely different movie on it, and I happen to fall asleep during it. The tape kept running in my VCR when I awoken to find Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) on it. It was a borrowed tape. It was kind of neat how it happened, really. I was like, "What is this???" I started watching, totally invested in all that occurred from that point forward. Of course, I just had to rewind it to the beginning. Well, almost the beginning. This was a "late night movie" on TBS when it was recorded, coming after a delayed Atlanta Braves baseball game. There was a movie, the baseball game, and Dark Night. To me, there's nothing quite like discovering a gem you had never heard of. I am a freak for nostalgia. If you come to this blog, you will notice that I wax nostalgic a great deal. I can't help myself. Film experiences are special when you come across movies that have something about them. I knew Durning from an early age because he was in a lot of 80s/90s films. He just has one of those faces. I knew him primarily from Dog Day Afternoon which was playing a lot during the early era of Encore before Starz would become the cable/satellite juggernaut it is today. I added a lot of face shots of Durning because he communicates exactly what his character feels and conveys them to us, encouraging our distaste for him. It makes the revenge of the film much sweeter. He is such a disgusting person in the movie and so when he receives his reward for the kind of moral junkheap he is it is gratifying. Anyway, that has already been written by me ad nauseum in my review for the film. I have yet to watch the blu-ray or special dvd edition of this film, so a cleaned up, re-mastered film might especially be to my liking. I plan to purchase it eventually. Still, that discovery is one of several reasons (you read and hear this a lot, I know) I am such a lover of horror. Not a gruesome film but quite chilling and spooky...and satisfying. The Scarecrow of my blog title and imdb account come from this movie (and the drama starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino from 1973), so it has continued to be a favorite to me until this day.
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Thanks to the blogosphere's own cinemarcheologist, I needed to include when I discovered it for the first time. It was, I believe '93 or '94. I was in my early teens. Oh, and I failed to mention as well that I was inspired by a fellow blog reviewer over at The Bloody Pit of Horror who had recently himself finally reviewed the movie of his title not but a few days ago. It was about time I did the same. It was a great pleasure to revisit and write about a film I truly admire and enjoy.