Dark Night of the Scarecrow

I usually make a point to watch as many horror movies as possible in the fall leading up to Halloween. In honor of the upcoming season I chose Dark Night of the Scarecrow to review, because in my opinion it is one of the best movies to watch on Halloween night. Though not terribly frightening or bloody, it has the feel of a classic old time horror movie that just feels good to watch on Halloween, much like Night of the Living Dead does. That, and it will give you something to think about whenever you visit the Midwest…giving you that sense of that "hey, it’s just like in that movie" sort of feeling.

Revenge figures prominently in Dark Night Of The Scarecrow, making it kind of “vendetta horror”. The horror movie initially focuses on Bubba (played by the always great Larry Drake), a mentally challenged man in a small Midwestern town. He has a very close friendship with a young girl named Mary Lee. One day while they are playing as usual, Mary Lee gets attacked by a dog, and Bubba comes to her rescue.

The next thing you know, Bubba is standing at Mary Lee's doorstep holding her almost lifeless body in his arms saying "Bubba didn't do it!" (not exactly the best thing to say at first sight in that situation) to her mother. Immediately, the whole town thinks that Bubba did do it. A group of four local men, led by the town mailman Otis (Charles Durning) and known for having been very cruel to Bubba in the past, decide to deal with Bubba in their own personal way.

The mob eventually tracks poor Bubba down in a field where he is hiding by masquerading as a scarecrow. Before they even give Bubba a chance they unload on him with their guns and kill him. Immediately after doing so, they get a call on the radio saying the girl is okay and that Bubba actually saved her life!

The mob, in an effort to save themselves and hide their evil deed, make their murder look like self-defense by placing a pitchfork in Bubba’s lifeless hands.

The killing goes to trial but all four men are found not guilty. Both the prosecutor and Bubba’s mother swear revenge.

All of the men believe they got off free and clear, and swear an oath of secrecy. Soon after the trial, however, they start to see scarecrows in their fields that were never there before. At first the men think that either Bubba's mother or the prosecutor is trying to scare them into doing something to expose their guilt. Soon enough, though, they start to die one by one in horrible ways made to look like farming accidents.

Otis begins to investigate each death as it happens, and his paranoia rises to a dangerous level. He wants to make sure that there are no witnesses to the murder left alive who could expose him.

Who is really behind the scarecrow killer? Bubba’s Mother, the prosecutor…or is it Bubba himself?

Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a great horror movie, originally made for TV back in the eighties. The suspense and atmosphere are perfectly developed here and the rising sense of paranoia and the “whodunit” factor really make Dark Night of the Scarecrow a horror movie that gets your attention and keeps it for the duration…right up to the final scene.

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THE SINFUL DWARF (Uncut XXX Version)

Shot in Copenhagen in 1973 by production company Scandia Films, THE SINFUL DWARF is a sleazy, mean-spirited, whacked-out, filthy, and nasty little flick that could have only been made during the drive-in and grindhouse days of the 70's. If we could somehow combine the DNA of Andy Milligan, Doris Wishman, H.G. Lewis, and Al Adamson into a single creature, this is the kind of movie that creature would probably make.

The heroin-induced slavery angle and grimey surroundings invoke THRILLER - A CRUEL PICTURE, while the zero-budget nature and the evil dwarf in the title role reminds some people of BLOODSUCKING FREAKS. However, THE SINFUL DWARF is entirely its own bag of filth. The subject matter is depraved; the sets, mattresses, walls, and floors are grimey and dirty; there is no intentional humor to take the rusty edge off. Some of the sex slaves have full armpit hair (very European of them) and display realistic looking track marks up and down their arms and legs (in one scene, Olaf struggles to find a vein in one of the sex slaves and finally just shoots the heroin into her ass). The XXX footage of the uncut version adds to the sleaze by displaying bungholes, throbbing cocks, beavers, and non-simulated fellatio. Yes, the stories are true - you will literally want to take a shower after you've seen this - but that won't help you wipe the layer of grime and filth off your poor battered soul.

Olaf (Torben Bille) is a creepy, sweaty, leering, gimpy, pervy dwarf who uses toys to lure young girls into his attic dungeon, where he ties them up, gets them hooked on heroin, and whores them out as sex slaves. Beneath the sex attic, he runs a sleazy boarding house with his drunken "Baby Jane"-like mother, Lila Lash (Clara Keller), who breaks out into terrible song-and-dance numbers while wearing fruit on her head like Carmen Miranda.
Down-on-his-luck writer Peter (Tony Eades) and his wife Mary (Anne Sparrow) are nearly broke and rent a room in the boarding house, unaware of the sleazy goings-on in the attic. Olaf watches them have sex through a peephole in their room. The husband ends up getting a courier job at the same toy store where Olaf buys his toys and his heroin (run by a guy called "Santa" played by Werner Hedman), and as part of his job, he unknowingly delivers smack hidden in the toys for them.
Mary eventually gets suspicious of all the johns going in and out of the attic and starts nosing around. She's eventually discovered by Olaf and his mom, just in time as it turns out - it seems that eventually, the drug-addled sex slaves use too much heroin to be profitable, and Olaf and his mom need some new girls. Susan gets shot up with heroin and added to the sex slave collection. Olaf's mom fakes a "dear John" letter for her husband to cover up the abduction.
With Mary now high on heroin, Olaf decides to get himself off by fucking Mary with his cane and sucking on her tits. Meantime, Peter finds out about Santa's drug smuggling operation and reports it to the police. Will the cops get to the house quickly enough to save Mary and her fellow smack whores from a life of slavery?

SLF