Bubba is 36 years old, but a mental handicap has left him with the mind of a child. A young girl named Mary Lee is the only friend Bubba has. One day when they are together, Mary Lee is attacked by a vicious dog and Bubba comes to her aid. When Mary Lee is seemingly killed and Bubba is incapable of explaining the situation, a posse of vigilantes takes the law into their own hands and hunts Bubba down.
They find Bubba in a field, hiding in scarecrow clothes and propped on a crossbeam. The four-man posse shoots him dead despite his protestations of innocence. Then, when the news comes out that the girl is alive and Bubba had actually saved her life, the posse places a pitchfork in Bubba's dead hand and gets the story straight among themselves.
Next thing you know, the posse is acquitted of the murder charge against them by their good-old-boy friend the judge, leaving Bubba's distraught mother screaming for justice. And her wish is granted, as the conspirators begin to die off one-by-one in "accidents." But are these accidents the work of the mother, the district attorney, or the spirit of poor Bubba, striking from beyond the grave?
Dark Night of the Scarecrow is one of the great examples of the kind of horror audiences were getting at home from TV movies that were actually made with love and care. The network Movie of the Week format once gave us well-crafted, well-acted movies that were sometimes actually scary. Now, the only people making TV horror movies are SyFy channel and their ilk, cranking out crappy CGI-filled cheapies with no heart, no joy, no characters, and no quality.
Certainly, Dark Night of the Scarecrow doesn't have the gory, overt violence that we are accustomed to, as it is a TV movie. But it does have atmosphere, a great story, a couple of decent (though bloodless) kills, and a good ambiguous ending. Oh, and it has really creepy-looking scarecrow. All that adds up to a fun watch.
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