Bubba Ritter (Larry Drake) is a man with the mind of a child. His best friend is little Marylee Williams (Tonya Crowe). They like to play in the fields and make necklaces out of flowers. After making one for herself and one for Bubba they walk hand in hand back towards home. On the way they pass a fence with a picket that is loose. Inside the fence is a yard with a patio and some interesting lawn ornaments. Bubba won’t go in. He says he’s not allowed in yards. Marylee has no such concern and goes through the hole in the fence. She ends up attacked by a large vicious dog. Bubba rescues her and carries the limp child home.
Word gets out that Bubba was responsible, and that Marylee is dead. Harless (Lane Smith) tells the postman, Otis Hazelrigg (Charles Durning). The two of them gather up Skeeter Norris (Robert F. Lyons) and Philby (Claude Earl Jones). Due to prejudice, Otis hates Bubba and has poisoned the minds of the other three men. Believing the big man murdered Marylee, they take off after Bubba. Bubba knows that Otis and the others will blame him because they always do when something goes wrong and have beaten him up before. He runs home to his mother (Jocelyn Brando). Mrs. Ritter tells Bubba to play the hiding game, so the men won’t find him. The men find Bubba hiding inside the clothes of a scarecrow out in a field. They shoot Bubba to death.
When word comes over the radio that Marylee isn’t dead, just injured, and that Bubba actually saved her from the dog, they need to think fast. Otis wraps a pitchfork in Bubba’s arm. When the men are put on trial for murder, they claim self-defense. The DA, Sam Willock (Tom Taylor) and Mrs. Ritter know it’s all bullshit, but the men get acquitted.
Now someone is killing the men responsible for Bubba’s death, but before they do, they play a mind game and display a scarecrow where the marked man can see it. As each man dies, the others that are left begin to lose their grip on reality. They are desperate to find out who is doing this to them, and desperate men do desperate things.
“Dark Night of the Scarecrow” was released in 1981 and was directed by Frank De Felitta. It is a made for television horror movie. It is a sort of blend of the ghost story and the 70’s slasher film with some vigilante justice tossed in but toned down for television. It is credited with starting the “Scarecrow” subgenre of horror films. A sequel, “Night of the Scarecrow 2: Straweyes” was released in 2022.
There were a lot of made for television movies made during the 70’s and 80’s. Although many of them were pretty bad, occasionally there was one that was really good. This one was exceptional. Everything comes together in one package, a creepy story, a great script, some superb actors and first-rate directing.
The screenwriter, J.D. Feigelson actually went to Texas to record the sounds of cicadas to use in the film. He also saw the name Otis P. Hazelrigg on a sign. He liked it so much that he used it for the main character in the film. Otis is never seen in anything other than his Postal uniform. Charles Durning, who played Otis Hazelrigg, did most of his own stunts.
There is some subtext to the film that implies that the reason that Otis Hazelrigg hates Bubba so much is because Otis is secretly a pedophile, who lusts after Marylee, and assumes that Bubba does too. He is projecting his deviant feelings onto Bubba and doesn’t get that fact that Bubba has no such emotion.