 And welcome to another episode of frightfully forgotten horror movies, but before we get started. What are we drinking today? We're drinking death corpse. It is a German rot beer today We're gonna be bringing to you another made-for-tv movie 1981's Dark Knight of the Scarecrow directed by Frank Defelida he actually wrote the novella and the screenplay for the entity which we had covered the movie stars Larry Drake who we all know as Dr. Giggles It also stars Lane Smith. He was in Mighty Docks. He plays the evil coach of the Hawks of course in Sun and Law Charles Durning is also in this and he is old school man. He's a lot of old classics The movie starts out in a small town setting Charles Ritter Bubba is his sort of nickname He's mentally challenged kind of frolicking around in the flowers and stuff with this little girl named Mary Lee a lot of people in The town are frowning upon this friendship between the two four guys in particular that are Really pissed off Mary Lee decides to go into this yard. No, Bubba won't go turns out that there's this dog And it ends up attacking Mary Lee Do it Right away even he knows that everyone will blame him for hurting Mary Lee Otis rounds these guys up they get in their fucking pickup truck chasing after This is stop and take is like Why they sent him on foot These guys are grossly out of shape It's like okay, you know what we do we play the hiding game Yeah, finally these four fucking guys start harassing the mother and the mother's like get the hell off my property You know what you're doing. Don't you you're obstructing justice? The bloodhounds end up lead them off into the field and there's this Haggard looking scarecrow and he keeps getting closer and closer and finally he looks into the eyes of the scarecrow And he sees two eyes looking back at him and you can see the fear and the eyes Bubba didn't do it pull their guns out just waiting and it's super tense Yeah, Otis takes the opening shot and they just blast for Bubba full of fucking holes They all follow suit and unload Right after they're done turning Bubba into Swiss cheese They get a call on the CB radio with the guy on the other end saying Mary Lee is gonna be all right Bubba took her into the hospital and turns out he's the one who ended up saving her Otis Put a pitchfork in Bubba's hand to make it look like self-defense almost the fucking judge I think he's in cahoots with everybody lets these guys go the lawyer is pretty pissed off All I need is one shred of evidence One of Otis's cronies is like kind of fixing up his truck and Harlow's his wife comes to him is like looking out in the field Says well, I didn't know you're planting her ready. He goes. Well, I'm not planting. Why would it be planting? She's all because you got a scarecrow up there and the looks up and way in the distance You see the scarecrow that looks exactly like the scarecrow the bubble was You guys like what are you doing playing the stupid trick on me? It's an awful trick to play and we didn't do it. So they go visit their buddy Otis Find out he's living in some fucking boarding house Otis obviously thinks that somebody's trying to scare them Harlow's is pretty freaked out He's been drinking heavy all day and he comes back home and you hear something kind of in the bar And he goes investigating he's walking through the bar and goes up to the loft and you can hear a piece of machinery Turn on and he gets kind of startled and he falls off into this kind of like Woodchipper thing yeah, because it's made for TV. They can't show all this gore. It just cuts to these preservatives being put on this Plate and it's Otis sitting in like having some communal breakfast with all these old men taking way too much like Looking at him like yeah fucking fat pig Ninja here well they found Harlow's dead Otis assumes that either the district attorney is after them or that Bubba's Mom is is after them Otis goes to the mother's house He comes up and he puts his hand around her mouth and I don't know if he suffocates her or he just scares a shit out of her Yeah, but he ends up killing her by accident turns on the gas burner and walks away and the house explodes Philby sees the scarecrow at his work runs up to it and he sees it He's terrifying he kind of collapses. It's nighttime now and he's finishing up at work He here's all these hogs He gets trapped in like this grain silo and then all the grain starts pouring in he can't get out It's been locked and his hands kind of like he's got the flashlight And then it just fills up and he's done they hear about Philby's death And at this point Skeeter is flipping out because he doesn't know what's going on They don't know if Bubba is still alive and after them if the district attorney is after them It's obviously not Bubba's mom anymore, but he's ready to confess he Otis convinces him Let's go dig up his grave They open up the coffin and that's where we're gonna end it if you want to find out what happens with Otis and Skeeter and Maybe Bubba keep watching. Why are we talking about this movie? Why did we pick this one? Well, cuz it's fucking great. Yeah for a made-for-tv movie. This is like it's probably about as good as you get Yeah, like the top-notch you can have a good story and have it told poorly, but this is a good story Told very well. Yeah the way they unravel it and the way they lay it out and the pacing It's all just so perfect. The music is fucking scary. The music is scary. Yeah, it helps elevate the scenes Everything is mostly implied. Yeah, right and yeah, you don't see any kills. No, which is great You don't see who's doing it. Yeah, you do see the odd point of view shot when he'll be get stuck in that silo and you see the POV shot of Somebody walking up to it and like walking it. Yeah, but you don't know who so it's kind of up to the viewer It's also a great mystery too. Yeah, good mystery movie who's up to it Is it the spirit of Bubba? Is it the lawyer? Is it Mary Lee the characters, right? That's like a hallmark of this movie all the characters are fucking great You'd start off with Bubba like Larry Drake is acting his ass off as Bubba such a memorable character They know Bubba didn't do it It's just like burning your brain after this movie and the look in his eyes Like even if he didn't say one word throughout the movie wouldn't they have the shot of him in the scaricural costume and the Fear in his eyes is just enough even the bad guys, right? You find that oldest guy Fucking hate him. You want something to happen to him so bad Yeah, what the whole movie like one of Otis's cronies skater seems like a simple guy Who's just kind of along for the ride? He kind of does what the pack does and you kind of even sympathize for him at the end He's flipping his lady's going crazy and for a TV movie to the cinematography is great A lot of the shots the shots of the open fields and yeah the little scare crow with Giant field right yeah, it's it's shot very well They took their time to really make this movie look cinematic Mm-hmm even though it wasn't a cinema release the tension that this movie builds to right because you're just waiting for it's like Oh, I want him to die. You're waiting. You're waiting. You're waiting. It's the build up to it We're not necessarily the actual event of it But you're not bored because you learn a lot more about the characters you learn a lot more about the story There's a lot of subtleties nothing is crammed down your throat in this movie Yeah, like the subtle thing that Otis is like either like an alcoholic or a recovered alcoholic Same thing with Otis maybe being a pedophile. They don't really come out and say it, but it's implied Yeah, and it's enough for you to kind of get it right even the fact that it's all takes place around Halloween time Is not shoved down your throat. It's not forced nothing is forced no this movie So if you like a good like revenge story, you definitely have to check out this movie. It's a lot like the crow I find it's like almost the same story as the crow, right? Scarecrow Yeah, the same a spirit coming back and taking revenge on the person who did them wrong It's basically the story and if you like the crow and want a different spin on that whole tale Definitely check out the Dark Knight of the Scarecrow. Yep, of course like Otis keep drinking