Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark: All References And What They Looked Like In The Books
5. Harold
One of the most iconic stories and images from both screen and film, Harold is a story about a murderous scarecrow that finds little change from his short story origins, as well as his evocative Gammell illustration, even if the details vary.
In the book, Harold is created in the figure of a man two farmers hate, and like in the film, they take their frustrations out on him, beating and mocking him, until he starts to make sounds that disturb them, ones they are still able to rationalise as the sounds of insects that may have burrowed into his body.
Eventually, Harold moves on his own, and the terrified men leave him once they move their cows back down to the valley, but one of them goes back to get their milking stools - and the other sees Harold lay the farmer's skin to dry on the rooftop of their hut.
The movie is similar in spirit, though it takes the terrifying image of a skinned man and uses an equally frightening, if less gory image of a racist bully growing straw out of his mouth and becoming a scarecrow.