DVD Review: Dark Night of the Scarecrow
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Studio: VCI Entertainment
Release Date: September 28, 2010
Directed By: Frank De Felitta
Cast: Charles Durning, Tonya Crowe, Larry Drake, Jocelyn Brando & Ed Call.
Review By: Prudence J. Figgypudding
Few things are as mentally distressing, nor as psychologically scarring, as the sight of irriguous, morbidly obese male inhabitants of regions south of the Mason Dixon line, forcibly squeezed into polyester slacks by an industrial sausage press and permitted to run amok. And no my dear friends, it is not your Tea Partying American militias to which I refer. As if any of you plebeian miscreants across the pond could possibly grasp the concept of a proper tea party to begin with. Pshaw!
However, my unshakable devotion to veteran actor Charles Durning (he of When A Stranger Calls and Muppet Movie fame) causes me to sincerely hope that whomsoever was tasked with fetching the crowbar with which to extricate the honorable thespian himself from his trousers at least had the compassionate foresight and common decency to apply lubricant first.
Compressed into this shroud of synthetic fibers, Durning presents what is perhaps one of his most wretchedly unlikable characterizations to date, surpassing even the villainy of Doc Hopper with his direful portrayal of Otis Hazelrigg, a sociopathic postal carrier who all too well conceals his habitual boozing and pedophiliac tendencies beneath a hard veneer of hypocrisy.
(A bit of wisdom from your Auntie Pru: never bestow the moniker of “Otis” upon a male child, as a child thusly named is much more likely to transmogrify into a child molestor/serial killer upon reaching adulthood.)
Otis is none too pleased by the sight of little Marylee Williams frolicking in a flowery field with her best friend Bubba, a thirty five year old mental deficient who has long been the target for the town’s suspicion and scorn. One can only assume that Otis’s bete noir for their unlikely amity stems from his own twisted desire to appropriate Marylee’s affections for himself.
A freak accident soon supplies Otis with occasion to enact vigilante justice when Bubba is accused of slaughtering little Marylee. At the behest of his elderly mother, Bubba has concealed himself within the guise of a tattered scarecrow. Sadly, Otis’s lynch mob soon sees through the clever ploy and proceed to empty their firearms into Bubba’s torso. Only then is it revealed that little Marylee has not shed her mortal coil and, in fact, was saved from the Reaper by none other than Bubba himself. Too late is this act of heroism reported and the cowardly men are left to hastily rearrange the facts , making their cold blooded execution appear as an act of forced self defense. Acquitted and released, Bubba’s killers are smugly free to return to their unenviable lives operating outdated farm machinery and attending church socials.
But, as Bubba’s elderly mother has so succinctly stated in a previous reel, there are other means of justice by which the guilty will be punished. Not content to allow his murderers to await their day of Judgement before the Throne of God, Bubba’s spirit returns from purgatory seeking vengeance, still clad in the tatterdemalion remnants of the scarecrow’s dress.
Vengeance, despite its fleet-footed reputation, is not always swift to fall, and indeed the wait time for Bubba’s return and subsequent arterial soaked rampage is equivalent to the time spent riffling through those decades-old copies of Redbook in the designated reception area of your personal care physician. The gratuitous foreshadowing in the films opening scenes is easily identifiable as such, and leaves no doubt whatsoever in the viewers mind that the wood chipper, the grain silo and the reliable pitchfork will eventually be employed in a suitably grisly manner.
At its core, Dark Night of the Scarecrow is an expanded version of the iconic “flower girl” scene featured in 1931’s Frankenstein, right down to the choice of the common Bellis perennis over which both the opening and closing credits roll. In its classic simplicity, the idea itself is as pure as the original intentions of Mary Shelley’s Victor. It is the execution which lacks the spark of life. And, as decay lays waste to dead tissue, so has the passage of years been particularly unkind to this film, turning its prose into predictability and its drama into unabashed hamminess. But for the presences of Monsieur Durning, Darkman arch-villain Larry Drake and Marlon Brando’s eldest sibling Jocelyn in a glamour-free turn as Bubba’s mother, I would readily dismiss this film as yet another mediocre cult favorite whose slow descent into dust was not altogether undeserved. The doggedly stalwart should be aware of its recent release onto DVD, although perhaps the transfer is nothing to pen a proverbial letter home concerning.
As scarecrow tales go, it is far superior to 1995’s Night of the Scarecrow, pales only slightly in comparison to 1988’s Scarecrows and shrivels altogether beneath the menacing glare of Jung’s Persona Archetype. Do what you must, but there is precious little to be harvested from this dust bowl.
