Decent horror movie about a warlock who terrorizes a town through the body of a scarecrow. It's never boring and the acting and special effects are fairly polished, but the movie suffers from one too many stupid scenes near the end. It also takes a while to explain what exactly is going on, but overall it was enjoyable enough. 4 out of 10.
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amok198027 October 2001
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Scarecrow-8825 November 2007Warlock's spirit, trapped within a scarecrow as his burnt bones lie in a tomb buried deep within the ground of his cornfield home, rises when the erected slab imprisoning his casket is disturbed as bolts of lightning emerge awakening his lifeforce..that's the best I can explain it, folks. It seems that the community founded by the Goodmans needed magical assistance if their unfertile land and people starving were ever gonna yield any satisfying results..in comes the Warlock to fulfill their needs, with his magic book of spells as a tool to help the community thrive and land fertile. When the magician began causing such rampant sin and perversion as his granted freedom gave way to lascivious appetites, those religious townpeople, who haven't succumb to the lusts of the flesh decide to hang him on a wooden cross in the middle of a cornfield, later burning his bones & burying them in a tomb. A scarecrow was erected, as was the slab, over the burial plot of the warlock, reminding the generations of Goodmans of the deeds they committed years ago. Anyway, we are now in the present and the recently awakened warlock uses his scarecrow body to kill various Goodmans(..and others in his path)looking to retrieve his magical book of spells and reunite with his bones so that he can return to fleshly form even more powerful than he is as a walking man of string. Claire Goodman(Elizabeth Barondes)is set up as you female heroine and lover Dillon(John Mese), who works for her pops, Mayor William Goodman(Gary Lockwood, FAR removed from 2001, that's for sure)is the male hero who must stop the killer scarecrow before he is able to become all-powerful.
Supernatural slasher milks the scarecrow idea for all it's worth. One scene has the scarecrow planting a seed within the lusty daughter of Priest Uncle Thaddeus(Bruce Glover, appropriately hammy as a corrupt priest who reads lingerie magazines while alone in his church)as it explodes wooden branches from her skin. Another has the scarecrow sowing Uncle Thaddeus' mouth shut. Oh, and you especially like the scene where the scarecrow causes one poor soul to grow straw from his facial orifices, fingers and torso. One scene has the scarecrow blowing straw into a cop's face like little nails that stab the guy in the face. Lots of WTF? death sequences that cause one to giggle..
Some recognizable faces include Dirk Blocker as drunken Uncle George who gets shredded by his tractor, Stephen Root as sheriff Uncle Frank who receives straw "needles" into his face, Martine Beswick as Uncle Thaddeus' wife Barbara(she likes to sew, so this ought to hint at how she'll likely perish), and John Hawkes as Danny, the nuisance who unearthed the warlock to begin with. Director Jeff Burr tries to inject some style into the incredibly asinine premise, but to enjoy this you'll have to accept the film on it's terms. Judging by the film's user rating, few have.. -
ChaoS-3728 December 1999This is a very typical and predictable film.I could guess out,practically each and every scene of it.BUT:I had a good a time with it.The murders are original,gruesome and they are supported by way above the average special effects.This film is to be seen with other horror buffs in order to have a good time.
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Michael_Elliott21 October 2012Night of the Scarecrow (1995)
** (out of 4)
A young woman (Elizabeth Barondes) returns home to learn that her family is about to sell their corn fields so that a mall can take its place. The woman is against this idea and especially after an evil warlock takes control of a scarecrow and starts to kill her family. NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW has a pretty good idea for a movie but the screenplay ends up not doing too much with it and in the end we've pretty much just got your standard slasher film with a few memorable death scenes but nothing else. All of the characters are pretty much bland and that includes the leads who simply never bring much energy to their roles. Most of the supporting players are forgettable as well with the exception of Bruce Glover who plays a preacher with a big mouth. The make up effects for the most part are pretty good and we do get a couple fairly interesting death scenes. A few people are pretty much stitched up or turned into scarecrows and these scenes look very good as does another one where a woman gives birth to one. The look of the scarecrow was quite good so it's a shame more wasn't done for him. The entire subplot about the warlock never really added anything to the picture so a straight revenge tale probably would have been better. Still, horror fans into the scarecrow sub-genre will find the monsters good enough to give it a view but there are certainly better films out there. -
callanvass27 July 2006This is a pretty boring slasher in my opinion, as I was quite disappointed, after reading lots of positive stuff about it. It has some decent gore scenes, but all the characters were very unlikable, and it moved along at a snail's pace, plus the only time it got interesting was the finale, as that was kind of fun to watch. I bought this at a pawn shop for a $1, as thankfully I didn't spend much money on it, plus The Scarecrow wasn't menacing at all for me, as it was just too weak looking. It may be worth a watch for Horror fanatics(like myself), but even then I would have trouble recommending it, and it's badly made and written as well, plus Gary Lockwood played his role extremely well as the prick of a Mayor!. There is one amusing moment, where a couple of drunk guys try to go mess around and pee on the Scarecrow, and things go dead wrong, and I thought the two leads Elizabeth Barondes(Claire) and John Mese(Dillion) hardly had any chemistry together at all, plus as I said the only worthwhile things are the decent gore scenes and the finale. This is a pretty boring slasher in my opinion, as I was quite disappointed after reading lots of positive stuff about it, and I say avoid it. The Direction is not very good. Jeff Burr does a bad job here with dull camera work, using a potentially good setting, only problem is it moves along too slowly, for me to really give a damn. The Acting isn't much better. Elizabeth Barondes and John Mese are mediocre as the leads, and I didn't really care about there characters, they were just there, plus it didn't help that they didn't have very good chemistry together. Stephen Root is OK as the Sheriff, and did his job adequately. Howard Swain plays the scarecrow well enough too bad it wasn't that menacing. Gary Lockwood plays the prick of a mayor very well I hated him. Rest of the cast are mediocre. Overall I'd say avoid. * out of 5
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A group of drunk teenagers accidentally set free the spirit of a warlock, which possesses a scarecrow and terrorizes the small farming community of Hanford.
Mike Mayo says the film "is nicely photographed with a few bloody good touches". I think this is pretty spot on. The movie really does look pretty sharp, particularly for an independent film, and the gore is respectable. Any horror fan should eat it right up. The special effects, for the most part, were above and beyond what you might expect.
Lead actress Elizabeth Barondes was likable. I do not recall ever seeing her in anything else (although she did the remake of "Not of This Earth" the same year), but she deserved to be a bigger star. Apparently too late now, as she has moved on to become an interior designer. The rest of the cast is good, too, and fans of "Dodgeball" or "Office Space" will appreciate Stephen Root in the role of a sheriff.
Of particular interest to me was the "orgy" scene. Filmed in crisp sepia, with plenty of throbbing and corpulent flesh. These are not all beautiful people, but they are animalistic, and I think director Jeff Burr really did himself a favor by including this scene, pushing the boundaries of the film just a bit further.
Burr, in general, deserves respect. Sadly, this film is probably overshadowed by the similarly named "Dark Night of the Scarecrow". But they are both good films and have their own sensibilities. This one is much darker, much more gory. Burr's career is one horror sequel after another, which he does fine at, but his best work shines through in his original pieces like this one and "From a Whisper to a Scream".
As of 2012, Olive Films has finally released this movie on to DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time. I have not seen their version, but I hope it is cleaned up nice and has a special feature or two. The Netflix streaming version is full frame and somewhat fuzzy, suggesting a VHS transfer. I know this film does not have the fan following of other mid-1990s horror films, but perhaps with the Netflix exposure more people will push the right people to give this film a decent release. -
dipdatta15 March 2018Wasn't expecting anything great, but it was better than I thought. Good rural atmosphere, ok acting & decent script. Some of the murder scenes are pretty innovative & gory. Direction could have been better, sometime scenes end abruptly. Overall, good movie for a rainy evening.
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Semih27 August 2003The special effects and make-up are well done. The plot is standard. Characters are really fun, especially the priest. But the main girl and guy were a bit of a bore. As if cast only for their looks (which is usual, but at least look for a bit more, right?) The Scarecrow is funny and entertaining. He could've easily become one of those horror film characters like Leprechaun, or PumkinHead, or Jack Frost. But not exciting enough to become a Jason, or Freddy. Not much to say except i enjoyed it, rather than getting just plain bored.
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This movie has no redeeming qualities (okay a couple of inventive deaths but you'll be bored getting to them). Writing a review of it seems to be a waste of time but I've already wasted 90 minutes of my life watching it so if I can stop other people from doing the same then it was worth it. Think for a minute what makes bad horror movies so bad and you have Night of the Scarecrow. The director needs to go back to film school and study suspense again because this movie doesn't have any. Let me say this one last time: gore does not equal horror!!! The gore in the movie is even quite lame. I find Scarecrows scary so I had high hopes for this film but it's just another example of why horror movies get such a bad rap. The acting is mediocre as are the few shocks that the film has. Do yourself a favour and skip this dud. 1 out of 10.
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Hey_Sweden23 June 2013This minor but amusing shocker may get confused with another movie that bears a similar premise, with a similar name: the 1981 TV horror story 'Dark Night of the Scarecrow'. This can boast some atmosphere, and a fair bit of style (courtesy under-rated genre director Jeff Burr ("From a Whisper to a Scream", "Stepfather II")), as well as some entertaining effects work. It's nowhere near as good as its almost-namesake, but at least it doesn't appear to be taking itself too seriously. It also gives some enjoyable showcase roles to a roster of character actors.
Super sexy Claire (Elizabeth Barondes) returns home to the small California town where her dad William (Gary Lockwood) is the mayor. She's just in time, too: soon after she gets there drunken youngster Danny (John Hawkes of 'Deadwood' and "Winter's Bone") desecrates the resting place of a spirit that then proceeds to inhabit the body of a scarecrow; said scarecrow goes about slaughtering the descendants of the man who attempted to put the spirit to rest. Claire teams up with hunky local Dillon (John Mese) to fight the rampaging scarecrow.
The good thing is that "Night of the Scarecrow" isn't boring. Burr keeps it lively and makes sure that it never stops moving. The monster itself, played by Howard Swain, inspires no fright at all, and in fact all scenes with it come off as silly. The special effects, a mixture of mechanical, makeup, and digital work, are generally pretty good, and it is fun to see characters suffer a variety of truly nasty and imaginative fates. These are the kinds of things one simply has to laugh at. Impressive camera-work and good spooky music by Jim Manzie help to keep this watchable.
The actors do their best at selling this standard material. Barondes is very easy on the eyes, which doesn't hurt at all. Bruce Glover ("Walking Tall", "Chinatown") gets an opportunity to tear into the scenery as the local minister - the type of minister who peruses risqué photos when alone in his church, Stephen Root ("Office Space", 'NewsRadio') is fine as the sheriff, Dirk Blocker ("Poltergeist", "Prince of Darkness") appears as a farmer, and Lockwood ("2001: A Space Odyssey", "Firecreek") is amusing as the mayor. Cult actress Martine Beswick plays Glovers' wife, and Duane Whitaker and Joe Unger are Roots' deputies.
A decent if unremarkable viewing for the horror fanatic, "Night of the Scarecrow" does begin and end with a flourish. One could do worse.
Seven out of 10. -
gridoon10 September 2003Yet another slasher film, with a scarecrow doing the killing (and targeting young and old alike). Not bad production-wise, with impressive special effects and a couple of good-looking girls, but the cliched dialogue and the routine script (minor SPOILER - they can only defeat the villain by destroying his bones...nowhere have I heard this before...yes, "Nightmare on Elm Street 3") make it completely forgettable horror fare. (**)
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WildestDreams25 September 2012This film is long lost treasure for horror scavengers. Its often labeled as "supernatural horror", but its true strength is in the slashing scenes. The story of the small town with a curse wouldn't be as engaging without the fantastic slasher edge. The kill scenes look like they are straight out of classic Italian horror: amazing gore effects done without computers. The kills are innovative and realistic looking, including some Saw-worthy torture sequences. The plot is hardly original but it turns out to be just sufficient enough. If you somehow combined Maniac, Children of the Corn, and Pumpkinhead into one movie, it would come out something like Night of the Scarecrow.
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Northtribe37 February 2016When two drunks accidentally awakes an old warlock (who takes the form of a Scarecrow) from the grave the terror begins in town. It's up to a newcomer named Dillon and the daughter of the mayor named Claire to put an end to the warlock once and for all.
I think the characters in this movie are very well written and you care about each and everyone of them (since many of the characters have different personalities it gets much more entertaining to watch this movie).
The special effects are top notch (if Im not mistaken done by the same team who worked on the Elm Street movies), the death scenes are very cool as well even though they aren't that bloody (if you've seen the movie you know what I am talking about).
Already from the opening sequence you get the "Children Of The Corn" vibes and you're drawn into the movie immediately. The only problem with the movie is that it gets a little bit drawn out during half of the running time.
I am ready to give Night Of The Scarecrow a 7/10 stars. I would say it's Jeff Burr's worst movie I've seen so far but by saying that I don't mean it's bad in any way (only that his other movies are so damn good). -
metalrage66613 January 2016There are two types of scarecrow movies; those that aren't half bad and those that are downright silly and Night of the Scarecrow falls into the latter category.
Movie gets going with the town mayor holding a speech complete with college brass band for the grand opening of a new mall as an indication that the alleged sleepy one horse farming town is actually thriving. While this is going on there's an argument ensuing between 2 guys and it ends up with one happening to fire the other one for his irresponsible ways.
That night the recently fired young man does what every country rube appears to do in these situations; get drunk, break into a shed, steal a tractor and drive dangerously through a corn field. In doing so they happen to drive over a large stone slab implanted in the ground with a cross carved into the surface.
Once that is done, an evil presence emerges and transfers into a nearby scarecrow, refilling it with fresh straw. The scarecrow then sets about killing people.
It's not until you're halfway into the movie that a recently attacked priest tells the story of the town founders 100 years prior and a deal they made with a warlock. The townspeople were starving, the ground was unfit for growing, so they made this pact to enable bumper crops and good times. In return the warlock seduced the towns women forcing them to engage in debauchery; including the daughter of the town leader. Using the warlocks spell book against him, they crucified him, waited for him to die then burnt his body and buried it in the cornfield. The bones had a spell cast and the stone slab placed over as a seal. Normally after you'd hear a story like this you'd be thinking the person is drunk or spaced out and in need of a lot of therapy, but not our 2 hapless heroes, this rambling fantastical story just spurs them into action of tracking down a killer scarecrow.
Now the scarecrow, possessed by the warlock spirit, is going around getting revenge on the descendants of the town founders and hunting down his book so he can be a real live boy again. The race is on to find the old guys bones and dispose of them once and for all.
The story of age old revenge and great great grandsons/daughters having to pay the price for old misdeeds has been done to death in a thousand other horror movies and it's been done much better than in this outing. The idea of killing the very people who have the information on the whereabouts of whatever the demon/ghost/spirit/scarecrow etc happens to be looking for always seemed counterproductive to me but seeing as I'm not any of those things yet, what do I know? I do know that as far as scarecrow movies go, this is far from being great and there's no real reason to go out of your way to hunt this down. It's worth a look on late night TV or a "let's make fun of stupid horror movies" marathon. -
brandonsites19812 June 2002A group of drunken teenagers accidently release the spirit of an evil warlock who was imprisoned for hundreds of years who takes the form of a scarecrow. He then goes about the town killing the descendants of those who imprisoned him. Well made horror flick with good special effects, is still just a routine slasher flick with an unoriginal premise.
Rated R; Nudity, Violence, Sexual Situations, and Profanity. -
monkey-man8 November 2005If u are a fan of crappy b grade horror movies i highly recommend that u watch this movie and i think that u will like this movie.The acting in this movie is really poor and there are some OK gore scenes in this movie and the horror make up and the special affects are actually good.
I was surprised to find that the OK actor Stephen Root from the good movies the lady killers and the very funny movie Dodgeball stars in this movie as the Sheriff.
Over all this movie is OK and this movie is not out on DVD yet and if u find this movie on old crap video u should rent it.Over all my rating for this movie is 5 out of 10. -
claudio_carvalho7 June 2022Claire Goodman (Elizabeth Barondes) returns to her hometown Hanford to visit her estranged father, Major Frank Goodman (Stephen Root), and her family. She befriends the constructor Dillon (John Mese) that works for her father, and invites him to have dinner with her family. Dillon has fired the rebel Danny (John Hawkes) along the day, and during the night, the completely drunken Danny decides to seek revenge and drive a tractor with a friend through the cornfield. However, he stumbles upon a stone and breaks it, unleashing a force that uses the nearby scarecrow as a body. Soon, the scarecrow looks for members of the Goodman family to kill them. Claire and Danny are dating and they lean that one hundred years ago, a warlock promised to turn the useless land into a fertile and productive land. However, he was betrayed by an ancestor of the Goodman family and buried in the cornfield. Now his spirit is seeking revenge and looking for his book of spells to return to the human form.
"Night of the Scarecrow" is a slasher with the storyline of the curse of a family that is hunted down by a scarecrow. The plot is very reasonable, with good performances and special effects. The unknown Elizabeth Barondes performs a strong and great character. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "A Noite do Espantalho" ("The Night of the Scarecrow") -
Uriah4313 April 2021This film essentially begins a hundred years earlier in a small farming community which has been experiencing several issues resulting in extremely poor harvests. Desperate to turn things around the leaders of the community make a deal with an evil "Warlock" (played by John Lazar) who promises better crop yields in return for allowing him to live freely among them. Not seeing any harm in this they agree only to soon realize that he is intent upon seducing all of the local women and changing their community into something to simply satisfy his deviant sexual desires. Eventually things get completely out of control and they decide to kill him. The only problem is that his magical powers are so formidable that they fear the consequences if they fail. So after extensive research they discover that in order to rid themselves of him they first have to steal his spellbook. Once that is accomplished they then crucify him and subsequently bury his bones under the cross in a sealed container. This results in the warlock's spirit being trapped inside his body which transforms into a scarecrow hanging in the middle of a cornfield. Not long afterward things return to normal and the small community of Hanford gradually begins to grow with the descendants of the leading pioneer eventually assuming leadership positions. However, things change dramatically when some drunken teenagers accidentally break the container and release the warlock's spirit which brings the "Scarecrow" (Howard Swain) to life--and fills him with an insatiable need for revenge. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off well enough but it suffered somewhat from a rather thin plot and weak script. Admittedly, there were a few good horror scenes here and there and Elizabeth Barondes (as "Claire") performed in a respectable manner but it wasn't quite enough for me to rate it any higher than I have.
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drownsoda9016 July 2023This effort from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre III" and "From a Whisper to a Scream" director Jeff Burr follows a small farming community in Northern California, where the spirit of a warlock is unleashed and possesses a scarecrow, wreaking havoc on the townspeople. The mayor's daughter, who has recently returned, finds herself a prime figure at the center of the madness.
Not to be confused with the 1981 TV movie "Dark Night of the Scarecrow", this 1995 film does very much have the look and feel of a TV movie at times, or rather, a direct-to-video comportment (which it was). It very much resembles a number of other films of this era that lined video store shelves (think the numerous "Children of the Corn" sequels, for example) which, while not high art, were often schlocky fun--and this is certainly true of "Night of the Scarecrow."
The film suffers from some clunky dialogue and at times lifeless performances, as well as a number of special effects that even would have looked a bit hokey in 1995, but it's not all bad. There is a decent atmosphere established here, and the classic "town secret being unearthed" subplot is decently played, even featuring a stagey Satanic orgy sequence shot in sepia (and with what appears to be occult symbols on the floor with duct tape!). There are a number of fairly showy gross-out murder sequences here that are marginally effective, and the film is largely well-shot.
The finale plays out as to be expected, but again, it is all in good fun. While it is not an exceptional film by any means, "Night of the Scarecrow" will have a fair appeal to genre fans who grew up in the 1990s with films of this type. If your parents let you rent any number of "Children of the Corn" sequels from Blockbuster (and they made an impression on you), "Night of the Scarecrow" serves as a nice throwback to video store-era horror done on the cheap. 6/10. -
I only watched "Night of the Scarecrow" for one reason, and that was to look at the beautiful Cristi Harris. She should have played the female lead but instead was barely in the movie. This wouldn't have mattered so much if the movie was interesting at all, but it really isn't. I just never cared about it at all.
It's a slasher about a killer scarecrow, but you knew that already. I can't tell you anything else about it because I didn't pick up on anything else while watching and toward the end I just watched YouTube or something while waiting for the movie to end.
It does have one scene that got my attention, which was a death scene in which the scarecrow is apparently able to infest its victim's body with straw which bursts out from within and even comes out the victim's eyes. This was pretty impressive from a special effects perspective. -
dromasca2 January 2000Nothing exciting happens in this horror movie. All is extremely standard, all is expected, and you keep having this 'deja-vu' feeling despite the fact that you did not see the film before. No wonder, it looks like some collection of quotes from gothic literature that you have already read and from other many class-B horror movies that you have already seen.
I cannot point to something bad either. Acting is not good or bad, just medium TV-level stuff. Effects are no worse or repulsive than in many other movies that belong to the genre. It is just...boring. Avoid this film, unless all other channels broadcast only cricket or baseball games (no offense intended - replace those by the two sports that you cannot understand) -
paul_haakonsen19 March 2024Now, I had never actually heard about this movie prior to stumbling upon it here in 2024. And with it being a horror movie I had never heard about, much less watched, of course I opted to sit down and watch it. Perhaps I had been missing out on a great horror movie.
The storyline in "Night of the Scarecrow" was a pretty generic and mundane one, even for a horror movie of this sort. Sure, it was watchable, but it was by no means an outstanding or memorable horror viewing experience. Writers Reed Steiner and Dan Mazur just didn't put together anything overly impressive here back in 1995.
I am sure that if you are a newcomer to the horror genre, then "Night of the Scarecrow" might do the trick for you. But I have been watching horror movies for about 40 years, and I have to admit that director Jeff Burr just didn't really deliver the goods here for me.
The movie actually has a couple of familiar faceso n the cast list, with the likes of Bruce Glover, Dirk Blocker, John Hawkes and Stephen Root. The acting performances in the movie were actually good.
Visually then "Night of the Scarecrow" was okay. Nothing outstanding really, but the effects were fair enough for a movie such as this.
My rating of director Jeff Burr's 1995 horror movie "Night of the Scarecrow" lands on a four out of ten stars. -
psycho_15326 December 1999Night of The Scarecrow is a cool horror movie. The scarecrow may look cheesy but he is cool. There are some great killing scenes throughout the movie which make this a worth while watch. Not many people have heard of this, but still give it a go because it is much better then some of the other horror movies out there.
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ninsgoogl11 September 2019I watched this when i was 4 in VHS and i used my mom as a shield not to see it! 🤣🤣
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A entertaining movie with laughs and scares and things in a scarecrow movie that had to be said, like "HOW ABOUT A LITTLE FIRE, SCARECROW". A enjoyable scare fest.
ON A SCALE OF 1 - 10 STARS (10 BEING BEST)
I GIVE "NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW"
9 STARS
ON THE POSITIVE SIDE:
1) INNOVATIVE (Strong and unique plot line that plays on the Scarecrow of the "WIZARD OF OZ" 2) GOOD EFFECTS (Realistic and scary) 3) GREAT MONSTER (Cool monster suit)
ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE:
10) OKAY ACTING (SOME OF THE ACTING NEEDED WORK)