Dark Night Of The Scarecrow (1981/VCI DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+
Extras: B- Telefilm: B-
There
were more good TV movies made in the original years of production (the late
1960s to early 1980s) made than anyone now (especially those making bad
theatrical films now as we have suffered through so many bad movies of late)
wants to admit and this actually includes Horror movies. The
Night Stalker, Satan’s School For
Girls and others had solid scripts, suspense, good actors and were
impressive considering the restrictions of TV at the time. One of the last important Horror telefilms
made before the networks gave up on making quality works is Frank De Felitta’s Dark Night Of The Scarecrow from 1981.
Made as
the slice-and-dice trend took over movie theaters in the wake of 1978’s Halloween, the film stars Charles
Durning as a local mailman who is not the nicest guy, who has a junta of local
friends who think they have some lock on normalcy, morality and can do what
they want. A local man named Bubba
(Larry Drake of Darkman and L.A. Law) has a positive relationship
with a young girl, but some locals do not like him, their relationship and his
mental limits have allowed him to be stigmatized and made an outcast.
When
something bad happens to the girl, not caused by Bubba, he is blamed and the
junta goes after him. Instead of
bringing him in, they find him hiding, dressed as a local scarecrow and they
decide for fun to shoot him up to death, taunting him and run. However, they soon discover that they have
made a big mistake as someone (or something) is going after them for revenge
one by one and they have to figure out how to stop the retaliation before they
all land up dead!
J.D.
Feigelson finished the script based on a story he co-wrote with Butler Hancock
and considering the TV limits, they wrote a very suspenseful thriller that holds
up very well for its age with few limits.
Director De Felitta also co-wrote the highly underrated Z.P.G. – Zero Population Growth
(reviewed elsewhere on this site), Audrey
Rose and The Entity, so he has a
solid genre writing record and this furthers that legacy. There is a reason this film has had the great
reputation and cult fan base it has for so many years and deservedly so. The supporting performances of Lane Smith,
Robert F. Lyons, Claude earl Jones, Tonya Crowe and Jocelyn Brando (among
others) work very well together and makes this a minor Horror classic.
That it
has been restored is a plus.
The 1.33
X 1 image was shot on 35mm film and the elements have survived in remarkable
shape, down to the detail and color, so much so that this could easily be
issued as a Blu-ray. Director of
Photography Vincent A. Martinelli (The
Bionic Woman, Quincy, M.E.) does some remarkable work here,
finally visible in this transfer in a way that only people who owned good film
prints of this telefilm could ever appreciate.
For the time, the use of color, shadow and light are far above TV of the
time and most Horror films of late.
There are some soft spots (limits of the DVD are part of it), but there
are some demo shots too. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo is also here as an expanded Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that is
not bad, but the sound really needs a lossless release and maybe PCM can really
deliver how good and clean these tracks really are, but this is good for the
format.
Extras
include feature length writer/director commentary to hear after you see the
film and the CBS Network World Premiere Promo that told everyone the film was
coming. Oh, how I miss the good old
days.
- Nicholas Sheffo
