10 TERRIFYING Made-For-TV Horror Movies
7. Dark Night Of The Scarecrow (1981)
Why this TV diamond didn't spawn a franchise of its own will remain quite the mystery. There was a short lived explosion of evil scarecrows in the eighties but the craze was indeed, just a craze. Fans of Jeepers Creepers and American Horror Story will recognise a lot here and with good reason - DNOTS is a genre classic.
The set up is genius: Poor local Bubba has the mind of a child in an adult's body - when the usual redneck brigade suspect him of killing a little girl (a sorry excuse to victimise a 'freak') he flees into the fields and attempts to hide in plain sight by dressing up as a scarecrow.
The plaid shirt grass chewers see through this immediately and unload multiple bullets into Bubba, killing him where he hangs, macabrely crucified in hessian. Flash forward to the trial and the cocky good ole' boys get off scot free with a warning. Bubba however, has returned from the grave and will have his vengeance...
For a lower-than-dinosaur-bones budget movie, director Frank De Fellita (writer of both the novel and screenplay of The Entity, another fine horror movie) totally understands the horror vibes and lays on the thrills and suspense with real expertise.
Tension and release, gruesome killings and an adherence to the uniquely American sense of rural horror made infamous by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, plus some unexpectedly top notch performances, put DNOTS miles above half the contrived nonsense on Netflix these days.