DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW. Made-for-TV movie, CBS, 24 October 1981. Charles Durning, Robert F. Lyons, Claude Earl Jones, Lane Smith, Tonya Crowe, Larry Drake, Jocelyn Brando. Director: Frank De Felitta.

   As an adult, returning to a horror film that scared the living daylights of me as a kid is always a fascinating experience. Before the film even begins, I am asking myself whether it’s going to be as terrifying, vivid, or scary as I remember it being. Is it going to look just plain silly, forcing me to doubt my youthful aesthetic judgment? After all, some kids just know when a movie stinks and when it’s good, right?

   Enter the scarecrow. Dark Night of the Scarecrow, to be exact. As a made-for-TV movie originally aired on CBS, the movie has no particular right to be that good, let alone that memorable. As it turns out, I remembered a lot of it pretty well. Not so much the minor details, but the general atmosphere of suspense and the visceral nature of the revenge-driven plot. It’s a very unsettling movie, both emotionally and visually.

   Then there’s Bubba. Portrayed by the late Larry Drake (L. A. Law, Darkman), Bubba Ritter is a kind, mentally challenged 36 year-old living with his mother on the outskirts of a small rural town. Drake’s performance is, in a word, unforgettable. He is able to convey his character’s childlike innocence, love for his mother, and his fear of the cruelty that surrounds him.

   Case in point: the local men inhabiting this festering hole of bigotry are pieces of work. In particular, there is the morally repugnant Otis P. Hazelrigg (an exceptionally well cast Charles Durning), a loathsome bitter man who hates Bubba and loathes his friendship with Marylee Williams, a local girl (Tonya Crowe). When it looks as if Bubba may have been responsible for the girl’s murder, Hazelrigg and three other men exact vigilante justice on the terrified Bubba, shooting him dead in cold blood trembling for his life in a cornfield.

   After the men are acquitted, things begin to get downright strange in the town. A mysterious scarecrow starts appearing, haunting the guilty consciences of the men responsible for Bubba’s death. Is it a supernatural occurrence or a prank designed into frightening the men into confessing their crime? After all, Bubba’s mother vowed that that there are other forms of justice than that dished out in courthouses. The violent deaths meted out to largely unsympathetic Bubba’s executioners in Dark Night of the Scarecrow demonstrate just how right she was.