Not to be confused with its sequel Dark Knight and the Scarecrow….okay that’s a lie, I’m just trying to keep your attention, because honestly, I saw this movie as a kid and I thought “What a terrifying movie!” and subsequently “This would be great for SplatterPictures” and now, I say “Well, it is probably good for the site in its own special way…”
Speaking of special, the basic plot of this movie is that there is a mentally handicapped man who makes friends with a young girl. They sit in fields and sing songs, all the while the mailman watches menacingly through binoculars. Kinda weird, but it’s understandable since apparently they routinely beat the hell out of him, per his conversation with a flannel wearing companion. One day, the girl sneaks through a hole in a fence and gets massacred by a guard dog. Of course, in lieu of actual action or reactions, we get GNOME REACTIONS.
The Horror…The Horror.
He drops off the girls’ body to her Mom, saying his catchphrase “Bubba didn’t do it!” to less than warm fanfare, then takes off running. The two man gang is now a small militia chasing after him. His kindly mom has him play ‘the hiding game’ which is, she puts him up on a scarecrow stake dressed as a scarecrow. They find him, light him up, and ol’ flannel has a victory beer.
About that time, the CB Radio informs us that they called off the search because the girl is fine and Bubba saved her life. WHOOPS! The mailman puts a pitchfork in the dead Bubba’s arm and hey, nobody is the wiser. At the trial, they get off free, and leave the courtroom to throngs of well wishers! You’ve never seen a happier bunch of murderers in your life!
His young friend climbs out her window and goes looking for him, Bubba’s mom tries to inform her that he’s died but she insists he’s still playing ‘the hiding game’. Meanwhile, our motley crew of pro killers is back to everyday life. Mailman is peeking at the mail, mechanic guy is injuring himself working on cars, and flannel is placing his hands in a woodchipper. You might be thinking “ohhh man, he’s going in the woodchipper!” but instead it turns out there’s a SCARECROW IN HIS FIELD! HE DIDN’T PUT UP ANY SCARECROW!
Flannel’s having himself a midnight beer, coping with unexplained scarecrows when his threshing machine is turned on! He climbs up into the hayloft to look for the culprit and of course, he gets ghost pushed into the thresher. In lieu of blood we get HARD CUT to ketchup on the mailman’s plate.
Whoever decided on the implication of violence via cuts is a true genius. Truly. As you can tell by now, this is sort of like Final Destination if death was a handicapped 30 year old man. Murder Inc. decides to check out the thresher and figure out that someone did this to their flannel wearing buddy. Mailman has a package for Bubba’s mom, they quote some scripture back and forth before she I believe calls him a pedophile. It would certainly explain the binoculars.
I find that constantly repeating “I’m not going to hurt you” isn’t as effective as the person saying it might hope. The mailman does not, as he confronts the girl who says Bubba is still alive. Likely story!
Turns out hat guy did not die from a heart attack, but later in the night, he gets spooked on his farm and hides himself in a grain silo. Of course, the door gets locked on him and he gets buried alive. I suppose he died the way he lived. Covered in corn.
Mailman and the mechanic dig up Bubba’s body and well, there it is. Go figure. Mailman quickly figures it out..it’s the 8 year old girl scaring these men and pushing them around. As mechanic guy closes the casket on Bubba, Mailman also decides it’s probably easier to just hit his friend with the shovel and bury him alive so that….uh…I’m really not sure why he decided to kill him. I guess killing is sort of like Lay’s potato chips.
Mailman decides it’s time to do some drunk driving and nearly runs over the young girl who’s walking in the middle of the road. She runs off and he decides it would be far more effective to chase after her in his mail jeep, which he promptly crashes off-road. He finds her next to a tractor, which turns on and chases him. Much like the tractor, he has no real movement ability beyond straight ahead and manages barely to stay ahead of this machine traveling at its lowest speed. He ends up running head-on into a pitchfork held by, you guessed it, a scarecrow.
In all honesty, the movie is not so bad, it just has one of those scripts that is limiting. It’s hard to be taken too seriously when you write Gomer Pyle in as every bad guy. It’s quite well acted and lemme tell you, the ending is STILL creepy.
UN-debatable: Handicapped ghost-haunted scarecrows are the SCARIEST scarecrows.
