Dark Night of the Scarecrow

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

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Don’t be fooled by this little-known horror film: It may be a made-for-TV movie, but it packs a serious emotional punch and a chilling ending. We were guessing all the way through this star-studded slasher movie that turned out to be just what we were looking for in a Halloween pic

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Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

Episode 410, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Here we are, we two of Halloween!

Craig: Oh, you’re stupid. I love it.

Todd: I got to do something special. You remember way back at like the first year or two during the Christmas episodes where I would try to do cute things with like a old Christmas songs in the, in the intro, like, you know, you should do it again. I can’t. No, man. YouTube killed me on that.

As soon as we started uploading our stuff to YouTube, we get these copyright. Oh, okay. Things for, for doing that. I’m like, all right, fine. Fine. Not even to be fun. Not even to be funny. I’m not going to clip in any of that stuff. Not that there are any great Halloween songs to clip in either. I mean, how many really are there, but anyway, yeah.

So I don’t do that anymore. So, you know, you’re welcome. That was my ghostly Todd next week is your turn, buddy. Oh

Craig: yeah. Well, yeah. Second week of Halloween movies. I’m excited. Cause I’d never seen this one before. Oh my God. Um, this is going to sound so stupid, but I swear to God, it’s true. Like. It’s, it’s cold outside and I’m like all snuggled up in a blanket and I’m like,

It’s

Todd: time for Halloween. I’m so excited. Did you ever buy those Halloween scare tapes? You know, I was obsessed with them, right? Where you’re just supposed to play it. It’s supposed to be like a soundtrack for your haunted house or something.

Craig: No, but I do sometimes, I do sometimes when I’m reading put on like spooky, like I’ll go to, like spooky

Todd: music.

That is so dorky, but also kind of cool.

Craig: I told you before, I think I, I cannot stand silence. I hate silence. I have to have something happening. The TV has to be on when I sleep at night, I sleep in front of a huge fan all throughout the whole year. The problem. Is that when it’s silent, then any tiny noise that I hear is so distracting.

Does that make sense? Like, yeah, just the regular, the regular noises of a house or a building makes sense, distracts me. And like, I can’t sleep if I’ve got that white noise in the background.

Todd: I’m good. Okay. Well, what I was talking about was I’m actually talking about those cassette tapes that would have like.

Ooh, with like clanging chains and ghosts and howls of werewolves and maybe a little bit of music. I’ve been to haunted houses there and there.

Craig: Yeah, sure.

Todd: Oh

Craig: yeah, man. No, I never had them, but

Todd: one of these tapes, it was, I might even still own it. It was like my prized possession, especially at Halloween time.

I would break that sucker out and I would try to play it as much as possible. Yeah, I miss those. Those are like childhood Halloween things that I’ll probably never revisit as an adult. Right. But YouTube , yeah, I’m sure. I guess I’m sure they’re on there. They’re probably more sophisticated now, too. This movie that we’re doing is called Dark Knight of the Scarecrow from 1981, and it’s a made for television slasher film.

I guess you could call it a slasher film. It has been requested a number of times by several publishers. That’s what I was gonna say. I feel like this has

Craig: been requested a lot.

Todd: It really has been, and almost every time that Halloween comes up and we’re asking people for Halloween suggestions, at least one person pops in.

Saying, hey, do Dark Knight of the Scarecrow, and I have to admit, I looked it up, because it sounds cool, but then I looked it up and I was like, oh, it’s a made for TV movie, and it’s like PG, and I thought, oh, you know, put that on hold.

Craig: It certainly probably would be rated PG, I think what I’m looking at tells me that it’s not rated.

And I’m not really clear because I read that it was originally intended to be a theatrical film, but then it was released on TV, but at the same time it felt made for TV because. As made for TV movies do it had clearly built in moments for commercial breaks. Yeah.

Todd: Well, it wasn’t shot for theater. It was written for theatrical films and it was written by JD Fagelson.

He wanted to do a feature film and it ended up getting bought by CBS, but Apparently they shot it with very, very few changes to the original screenplay. Anyway, I think if it had been theatrical, it probably would have been just gorier. You know what I mean? They probably would have been a little more explicit with the action, but.

Yeah,

Craig: it’s, that’s so funny. Like, I didn’t know anything about this. I didn’t know that it was a Halloween movie. Like, I mean, it sounds kind of Halloweeny, I guess. And. It’s not like Halloween plays a huge role. Like it just happens to be at Halloween and they go to a Halloween dance at some point, but it’s not like Halloween features heavily, but whatever.

It’s very Halloween y. I get it. I can especially see like, if this was something that you saw when you were young, and I feel like maybe a lot of people did see it when they were young because it’s safe. Obviously we’ll talk about the details, but most of the deaths in this movie are accidents.

It’s not, it’s not like Jason is running around with an ax or a machete or whatever and like chopping people up or shooting them with like, mostly people just like fall down or something.

Todd: Yeah. That’s why I hesitated to call it a slasher film. But also this is something that I grew to really like about the movie.

Because as it went on, I felt like there was just this mystery, like what is happening to these people? Is there something behind this or are they getting up in their heads? Is there, yeah, I just, I wasn’t quite sure up until the very end. And I will say. Even after the very end, I still am not a hundred percent sure, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

I really, really liked it. It’s not going to go down as like the scariest thing I’ve seen. Cause it’s not, I mean, scary. I don’t know if you call a movie like this really, really scary. It really pulled at my emotions and it kept me guessing throughout. And had a very satisfying ending. And I was kind of wondering, like, why have more people not seen, I guess, just because it was a TV movie, it is in a pristine restored copy, I think pretty much everywhere, like on, you can get it for free on YouTube.

Like it’s been uploaded a few times there. I think it’s on Tubi. It’s on a lot of streaming services. And the picture looks like it was shot yesterday. It is crystal clear and nice and not in that annoying way that sometimes they restore movies and it’s just a little too clean. This just looks like a very love it.

Like they were probably able to go back to the negatives. They’ve still existed and they’ve still must’ve been an excellent shape to be able to go in there and restore this like they did because nobody would have seen it on TV on television as clean and as nice as, uh, As I got to see at this time and that helped too.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. It looks good, but it still shows its age in that way. It does shot. It, it, it looks very much like what, when did this come out? 80 early eighties, right? 81. Yeah, very much 81. And it looks like that.

Todd: It looks like late seventies, early eighties. One thing that makes it very eighties and dated is the people in it.

There are. Just like these TV movies would tend to do, Land, there are just, it’s chock full of stars, you know? Not necessarily A level, A list stars of the time, but oftentimes A list stars of the 50s and the 60s, or those bit player guys who you’ve seen in like every movie since the dawn of the golden age, you know, things like that.

And including the star, Charles Jerning, I love this guy.

Craig: I love every guy. Maybe we remember him from the same thing. Cause I know that it was a big part of our childhoods, but he was the governor. And the best little house in

Todd: Texas. Yeah. Yeah. And he’s one of the,

Craig: it’s one of my favorite parts of the movie.

If ever I had an opportunity to be in that show and like this, the stage play is different. So I don’t even know if his character is in it, but I always wanted to play that role. Cause he just comes in at the very end and sings a really fun song. It’s just like, dances out just

Todd: like his character. Ooh, I love to dance a little sidestep.

It’s so

Craig: good.

Todd: Yeah. It was also though, as a terrified of him as doc Hopper in the Muppet movie. I see who owns the frog leg restaurant or whatever. And it’s trying to get Kermit. I thought he was the most evil man on the planet when I was little, who’s

Craig: been in so many things. I don’t remember the Muppet movie.

I didn’t watch it a lot. For whatever reason, we were a Muppets take Manhattan family.

Todd: A little late to the

Craig: party there. Weren’t you? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, Charles journey has been in so many things. He’s got a really distinctive voice and, and it was unsettling for me. Because he’s a bad man in this movie. He is a terrible, terrible person.

And you said, yeah, he’s awful. And he is not a good representative of the United States Postal Service either.

Todd: Which happens to get a lot of representation in this movie, for better or for worse. Mostly for worse. I didn’t notice it myself, but I read in the trivia that he never takes that uniform off. He is in his postal service uniform.

The entire time.

Craig: Yeah. The same costume every day for the whole 17 or 18 days that it took to film this movie, he never changes out of that costume. But like he is just a creepo from from the get out. And at one point he’s we’ll get to it sequentially. But at one point he’s talking to a little girl and he’s like, I’m the postman.

Nobody’s scared of the postman. And I’m like. I am? If it’s you, you weird creepo!

Todd: Oh my god. This guy, I mean like, we’ve lived in small towns, and there is this kind of thing where people who probably shouldn’t be end up through just the fact that it’s a small town and they’re particularly bullying, that they get outsized egos and have undue influence, you know, over everybody.

And and so it’s kind of cute. I mean, it’s cute that the postman of this small town, you know The one guy who handles the mail, that’s how small this town is He’s the evil guy I there’s a courtroom scene later and I thought that was so funny because it looked just like a tiny small town courtroom And, and settled just like matters might have been settled in a small town courtroom.

Probably. One judge hearing everything and giving his opinion and that’s that, you know, uh. Oh, there’s so much to talk about.

Craig: I know, I was gonna say you’re jumping ahead the time like that. I know, I know. That courtroom scene made me so mad because at one point the judge is like,

Clip: Sam, these men are members of the community, they’re not criminals.

But your honor, they went out. Sam, I’ll tell you the truth. After listening to the arguments. I don’t think you have a case against him. Henry, your honor. These men went out with no legal right. Sam, Sam, you have produced no witnesses. You have produced no evidence. You have not shown me one thing to prove that what happened is any different than what they say.

Craig: Yeah, there is a ton of evidence and a witness. Like, I don’t know. I mean, the mom didn’t look at it. Anyway, all right. So you had said that the movie surprised you because it tugged at your heartstrings. That’s ultimately kind of how I walked. I walked away from it. Like that was a sad movie. Like it’s terrible.

It feels like an. And I feel like it could have been an episode of Tales from the Crypt or Tales from the Dark Side or something like that because it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s a morality play where bad people do something really bad and then they get their comeuppance. It reminds me a lot of Pumpkinhead. Um, because it’s centered around the death of an innocent, the, the brutal murder of an innocent in pumpkin head.

It was a little boy in this case. It’s a grown man played by Larry Drake. It’s this guy named Bubba who has special needs. He’s mentally challenged.

Todd: He starts out just sitting in a flower field with this little girl named Mary Lee, and when that opened up like that, I was like, oh, please don’t be like this.

What’s a more cliche thing than this little girl and this, well, in this case, anyway, I mean, it could be, it could be anybody kind of along this, any kind of relationship along these lines, but in this case, like you said, it’s a mentally challenged 36 year old, 32 year old man. Who’s there playing with her in the fields and they’re making flower rings and stuff.

And I thought

Craig: it’s so sweet. It’s totally innocent, but like it immediately, you know, you’re going into this movie. I knew what was going to happen, but they’re just, it’s so innocent and, uh, and sweet. They clearly have an established relationship. Like it seems like they’re like best friends. Yeah. It almost seems like she even understands that he’s different and she knows how to communicate with him in a way that you don’t understand.

Todd: And she teaches him things and it’s sweet and cute. And this kind of thing can happen immediately. I was thinking, Oh, please let this be like, I don’t want to sound like ridiculous, but I was just like, please let this be a more sensitive portrayal and not super hokey and kind of offensive. And I don’t think it was, you know, I was thinking back to the leprechaun where we thought, It was like a mentally challenged guy in there and it feels a little dated and maybe a little offensive the way he’s portrayed, but this feels very realistic and tender.

It does.

Craig: And Larry Drake also played mentally challenged person on law and order for a long time. And, and I think. That at that time, he got a lot of acclaim for his portrayal. Things are just so different now. Culturally, we’re just much more sensitive about those kinds of things, especially when you have stereotypical neurotypical people playing people with mental handicaps or, or.

Yeah, whatever. We’re just more sensitive and, and as we should be, but I can look back on something like this. And I was thinking the same thing, like, Oh, please let it be respectful. Let it not be a joke. Um, but it wasn’t, it, it, it wasn’t, this is a kind, innocent person who doesn’t deserve what is coming to him and doesn’t even deserve the scrutiny.

Now. Yeah. I feel like they’re setting it up that this evil Otis Charles Durning guy casts suspicion on Bubba. He is the one who is watching this little girl through binoculars. Like I don’t like what, what are you doing? Like why are you watching them? Why are you creeping on the side of the road watching them with binoculars?

Are we well, and then, and so then he drives, he drives, he immediately, I guess it’s on his route. I don’t know, but he drives to his friend’s house. Harless played by Lane Smith, who is totally recognizable too. And it’s like,

Clip: he’s out there again. And

Craig: he’s got the Williams

Clip: girl.

You know what he’s liable to do? Yes. Well, let’s get down there and break it up then. Oh, good. Would it do? Two days, he’ll be back again just like before. Not this time. I’m gonna teach that moron a lesson. You’re wasting your time. Just you wait and see. When I get through with him You’re wasting your time.

He’s an idiot. He can’t remember. You ought to know that by now.

Craig: Like what? What are you talking about? And it’s not that I think that it’s an unbelievable conceit that people might be concerned about a relationship between an adult man and a child, but this guy seems particularly invested in it without reason.

Like he doesn’t, the only thing that he observes that I suppose. As an outside observer might be questionable is the little girl kisses Bubba on the cheek. But if you watch the scene, he is really reluctant to do that because he’s concerned. Bubba is concerned that it might not be appropriate. And yeah, he kind of insists upon it.

Clip: Now I have to give you a kiss. Come on, Bubba. You have to. It’s the custom. Comes with the flower. And give it back.

Craig: It’s totally innocent. Totally, totally innocent.

Todd: Otis is just one of these mean, nasty guys. And these people do exist, I’m afraid. They do. Oh,

Craig: absolutely.

Todd: They just like stirring up trouble, casting suspicion on other people. I would say psychological. Usually it’s because they have problems of their own that they’re trying to distract from or whatever.

It’s so believable that this guy would be the way he is. And like you said, a reason is given to, and more than alluded to later in the movie, more than once that he might even be a bit of a pedophile, but you know, there’s no direct evidence of that.

Craig: Uh, kind of came out of nowhere, but as soon as it came up, I was like, Oh yeah, he

Todd: is totally a creep.

Yeah, I didn’t, I wasn’t really thinking about it either because I was just so focused on how he just hated Bubba, but then I was like, oh, well, maybe that is the reason why he’s, yeah. What, what, what a big reason why he hates him so much in the first place is because he’s spending so much time with this girl that he thinks, you know, he likes.

So yeah, he’s disgusting and then he, he kind of makes the rounds and bitches at everybody about Bubba, which clearly he’s done this many, many times before. And they, his friends talk about this too. Oh, you’re always talking about him and all that, but they don’t like disagree necessarily. They sort of seem to be humoring him.

But also later we kind of find out it seems like this isn’t the first time that they’ve all kind of gone up in arms about Bubba as well.

Craig: Because what happens, what happens immediately, it’s all in the first half hour. There’s actually kind of a lot of exposition. The first half hour is all kind of set up for the slasher movie.

I feel like in most slasher movies, you would kind of get this in the backstory, but we see the back. We see the backstory. So Bubba is with a little girl and they’re just walking down the street and they come to a fence and she looks through into this garden full of garden gnomes. That was weird. Like not just like one little garden gnome in the corner.

Like, like it was populated. Oh, they have a collection. And they were just out and about. Like these

Todd: are garden gnome enthusiasts.

Craig: So they were anyway, but the girl is fascinated. She’s like, Oh look, they have a new fountain. Let’s go in through the fence and see. And Bubba’s like, I can’t. This guy has obviously been taught by his mother that he can’t do anything wrong.

Because if he missteps, it’s going to be big trouble. And so he’s very cautious. And he says, I can’t go in. And she tries to get him to go, but he won’t. But she goes in. And then, she’s attacked by a dog. Which we don’t see, at all. But then, uh.

Todd: But we hear, and it’s almost 10 times worse, really.

Craig: Yes, except for, It didn’t bother me because I get it.

It’s a ratings thing, it’s TV. Bubba does go in to try to help her. We see him going in to try to help her. But the next thing is at her parents house, the mother hears a knock at the door, and when she opens it, it’s Bubba there holding her, seemingly dead, and Bubba is just saying, like, Bubba didn’t do it, Bubba didn’t do it.

Then it cuts to some, I don’t remember how Otis finds out about this, but what he hears is that the girl is dead. And it was Bubba that did it. I don’t think it’s

Todd: ever really explained. He just, uh, jumps off and

Craig: Large Marge tells him! Maybe No, no, no, that’s No, the breakfast scene comes much later. That’s when he learns his friend is dead.

But, but, guys, in case you were wondering if Large Marge is in this movie, she

Todd: is. We know this is a question some of you ask each other the minute we fire up every episode. And several times you haven’t been wrong. And today would be one of them.

Craig: So anyway, Otis puts together a posse. It’s him and three other guys.

There’s Harliss played by Lane Smith, who is in, I looked at his IMDb page because he’s so familiar and I did recognize a couple of things that he was in, like, I feel like he plays the stern dad in a lot of, Late eighties, early nineties stuff, but anyway, he’s familiar. And then there’s also Philby and Skeeter.

And I looked them up. I didn’t remember anything that they were in one’s a, one’s a real scrawny guy, one’s a heavier, sick guy, but he puts them all together and they grab their guns and they get their search dogs and they immediately head to his house and they’re chasing him. This poor man who has done nothing wrong is.

terrified and running home and he and they’re chasing him and he gets there and talks to his mother who just seems so kind and and is trying to reassure him that he didn’t do anything wrong and everything’s gonna be okay she by the way is played by

Todd: Jocelyn Brando, Marlon Brando’s older sister.

Craig: Right.

Todd: Which is It is funny, apparently, uh, well even members of the Brando family have said that her star could have shone just as bright as Marlon Brando’s did if alcoholism hadn’t derailed her career. But, uh, I think that was an issue with, uh, in their family. Yeah. Anyway, but, uh, yeah, it’s too bad.

Craig: I, I like her in this, like I totally believe her as the mother of this man.

She’s doing her best to take care of him, and, and she says something like, remember what we did last time? And then when the posse eventually shows up, she says, yeah, you guys are always harassing him. So it seems like they’re constantly accusing him of things that he hasn’t done. It brings the dogs out and

Todd: everything,

Craig: but she tells, she tells Bubba, remember last time we’ll play the hiding game, play the hiding game.

So he runs off

Clip: and

Craig: then the posse arrives and they confront her and they’re abusive to her, but she. Stands her ground. It’s

Todd: it’s pretty strong.

Craig: Yeah, she’s a tough old broad.

Todd: I liked her character a lot in this movie. Yeah, this person who’s been taking care of this, you know, adult child basically for 36 years.

Like she knows what to do and it’s a small town and things like this are ten times more difficult in a small town like this where there’s gossip and everybody knows everybody and people just won’t sometimes leave you the hell alone.

Craig: That’s definitely true, but it can go the other way too when it’s that small.

Oh, it can. Look. When it’s that small of a community, somebody like Bubba would, because the only thing that we’ve seen of him is that he’s kind and gentle, he would be embraced, I think, you know, in a small community.

Todd: It’s true, I would think so too, or at least there would be a faction of people who recognize and love him and, you know, go out of their way to be kind to him.

You see no evidence of that in this movie at all. No,

Craig: no, the thing that bothers me, okay, so, the dogs, because they have dogs, the dogs sniff him out, and he’s hiding as a scarecrow. Like, he has put on a scarecrow outfit.

Todd: They must have had it at the ready, you know what I mean? I don’t know. That went pretty quickly, too. I mean, to tell you the truth, I put a sack

Craig: over his head. convincing scarecrow.

Todd: Hangs himself up on a,

Craig: on a, yeah, like, like crucifies himself, basically, and looks like a scarecrow. It does not look like that man up on that pole, because I don’t believe for a second that it was.

Right. Because the, the dogs lead them to the scarecrow and Otis. Walks right up to it, and then we get a real tight, tight close up on the scarecrow’s mask. And you see Bubba’s eyes inside, terrified and crying. It’s horrible. It’s awful. Todd, it made me I was

Todd: really mad. I was really upset. I was too. I was super upset during this thing.

I thought this TV movie did what TV movies aren’t supposed to do. They execute him.

Craig: It’s horrible. All four of those men shoot him multiple times. Then it’s like, uh, Breaker Breaker 1 9, you out there? Like, the second after they have shot him. Execution style, as he cried and begged, the radio comes in and they’re like,

Clip: Blaster from

the clinic center,

Craig: oh yeah. And they all just look at each other like, uh oh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. But then it jumps immediately to that trial that you were talking about.

Todd: Yeah, that trial, I mean, a lot of times trials just aren’t, they’re not realistic in movies, right? It’s just like, it’s fine, you know, get to the point, you know, they were let off the hook by some small town nonsense, you know, that’s really what it is.

But what evidence

Craig: do they need? Okay, so He’s dead with bullet holes in him, in the Yeah, and after, after they shoot him, I guess they

Todd: set up Oh, it’s so lame, it’s pretty lame

Craig: actually. They put a pitchfork in the crook of his arm. And so their defense is that they shot him in self defense and the judge is like, Are you sure you didn’t give him a chance to surrender?

And they’re like, Oh yeah, we definitely did. Oh, we did your honor.

Todd: We swear. And then we shot him that

Craig: point blank range 27 times. I mean, come on, it’s ridiculous. But they get off and it’s so gross because not only do they get off, They are not only remorseless, but

Todd: cocksure. Not only that. Boastful. Boastful.

And they’re greeted just outside the courtroom by mostly cheering and happy people. I thought there would be like another faction there. I thought there would be some people who are angry, some people who are maybe their friends. But it seems like everybody is so relieved. It makes it look like the whole town.

You know, except for Bubba’s mom, are relieved that they got off scot free. Again, I think it’s oversimplifying the small town politics. You know, essentially, these are the good ol boys, and this is the well respected guy in town, and so nobody believes But it’s not entirely

Craig: unrealistic either.

Todd: No,

Craig: it’s not.

Unfortunately, it’s crazy. Small town politics are crazy, but it also like I was just then so uncomfortable that those men just continue to go about their lives and Otis continues to go out and be like the friendly. Mailman, like people are greeting him at the mailbox. Oh, hey Otis. How are you doing? That man is a

Todd: murderer and you know it.

Well later, he’s gonna show up at Bubba’s mom’s door and he is smug and almost taunting there. It’s so disgusting. By this point I was like, I cannot wait to see this man die. And so good job movie you set it up really really well I could not wait to see how these people were gonna go. Well, that’s true.

But the

Craig: other three I didn’t feel sorry for them I felt a little sorry for the last one for Skeeter I felt like they were all painted as being really Simple and yeah, I, I almost felt like without Otis’s influence, they wouldn’t have done that. They, they were just following. I mean, he’s evil. He’s disgusting, but he’s smarter than them and he manipulates them.

You, you actually even see that more after the fact than before, but if, if he’s capable of it after he was probably capable of it before too. That’s how he riled everybody up into, you know, Doing this anyway, so I have more sympathy for them. I wasn’t sad when they started dying and like so The scarecrow not a scarecrow the scarecrow shows up in Harliss’s field

Todd: Yeah, and he’s like what in the hell and he immediately goes to you know the town restaurant Where, uh, the other two are sitting.

And he sits down and he’s like, What in the hell? This is not funny, guys. Of course, they’re like, What? What are you talking about? No, we swear we didn’t do it. So then the three of them go to Otis and they’re scared. And they’re like, Somebody knows what we did because somebody put that in the field. And Otis is like, It must be Sam, who is the prosecutor.

Who had this very, you know, straightforward phrase. What did he say? Justice. What did he say?

Craig: He just said, as soon as I have evidence, I’ll come after you. It was the mom. It was the mom who said there’s other justices in this world besides the law. Yes. And I love it. I thought it was so great. It felt like a curse.

Todd: did! This movie is so clever because that also starts to cast suspicion on the mom. They end up, you know, eliminating people and kind of going through a laundry list of things, like, who could it have been who did that? And of course, their first thing is it’s the prosecutor. The prosecutor’s trying to draw them out.

And, uh, so they go to Otis boarding house. Otis lives at a boarding house. He’s a town post man. He’s been living here, I guess, for a very long time. Very well known in the community, but he doesn’t have a place of his own.

Craig: Well, cause he’s a creeper! Different time. Yeah, I guess so! He’s a creepy pedo grosso.

Yeah. So he lives in a boarding house. I don’t think those, those still exist, but it’s always so quaint in movies where, you know, this one old lady cooks for all these old bachelor men, like, that’s so funny to me! And then you have that breakfast scene where, okay, so Harlan gets killed, he sees, like, the, the scarecrow apparently is like an omen.

It shows up right before you’re going to get killed. But the way that he gets killed is like, he hears something in his barn. And then I think he hears something up in the hayloft. So he climbs up there and then the wood chipper below the law turns on by itself. And that startles him, so he stumbles and falls into it, like that’s what I say, it’s not like, it’s not like somebody is coming after these guys with an axe, it’s just like circumstantial

Todd: things.

But something had to start the woodchipper. Right. Which is a whole thing. Right. Which is a whole thing. And, and, I mean, didn’t you know, the minute you saw, like, that guy, the very first time we saw him was cleaning out a wood chipper, and I was like, oh, please let that be. Please let that be. But you don’t see anything.

Don’t even think, no, not even a spray of, of blood on the, any blood.

Craig: Nothing You’ve seen, nothing

Todd: disappointing. Actually, I really liked the way that scene was constructed. I think all of these death scenes were well constructed. It was cool how they did it for tv, but they kept the suspense, like they didn’t make it just over, you know?

Like he could’ve like, whoa, whoa, and then just fell off. He drops his sickle in there first, and you hear that get ground up, and then he grabs onto a light, which starts sparking, and he’s swinging by the light over it for a little bit, and then, you know, the light falls, and of course he falls into the chipper, and you basically hear that same sound, except it’s his bones.

But yeah, it’s kind of this long scene, very satisfying, I thought, but really well constructed, really well shot, really well lit. The movie, I think, yes, it does have the trappings of a TV movie, because it’s got the commercial breaks, it’s kind of got that plot, it’s got that level of tameness to it. But I thought it was a cut or two above on the beauty of the picture.

The lighting was really good. The angles were really clever and the foreshadowing that you got with a lot of different things was, was quite nice as well.

Clip: That

Craig: didn’t occur to me at the time. Now that you’re saying it, and I’m thinking about that scene and I’m thinking about the way that the swinging light was like.

Illuminating his face. Yes, I see. It. It, it didn’t really stand out to me as being spectacular, but I, I see what you’re saying. I think this movie is charming and successful in what it was doing. Knowing that it was a TV movie growing up, watching tv, movies, I think I would’ve liked this. Yeah, I, I, I think for sure.

It’s scary enough. You know, you don’t see a lot, but you know, what’s happening. And it’s, it’s the scary, it’s like Salem, Salem’s lot in a way. Really? Yes. It was much scarier because of Tim Curry’s performance, but. You didn’t really see a whole lot there either. As a TV movie, I think it works really well.

And because of that, that opens up the audience. Yes. You could watch this with your 8, 9, 10 year old at Halloween time. Yeah, you could. It’s suggestive, but it’s not directly violent. I don’t know, I wouldn’t, because I’m really, I’m still upset. Yeah. Well, but the good thing about it is, though, that the guys all do get their comeuppance, so I guess that’s fair.

That’s

Todd: true. Speaking of things that get you upset about this movie. Let’s talk about the girl for a second. So she comes to, and she doesn’t know that her friend is dead.

Craig: No, and her parents aren’t going to tell her.

Todd: Aren’t going to say, what are they gonna tell her? What a bad parenting move. But anyway, the dad was like,

Craig: it’ll pass.

Todd: Pretty soon she’ll just wonder where Bubba is, this guy that she played with every day out in the field. She’ll

Craig: quit acting, she’ll quit asking eventually.

Todd: They were like best friends and you can tell because she wakes up in the middle of the night and she goes to the window and it’s all windy and it, and it starts to feel a little creepy here.

Bubba, Bubba? And you’re like, why is she calling for Bubba? And she runs outside, it’s, it’s the middle of the night and she runs to Bubba’s house, which clearly is something she’s done many times because she goes to what is supposed to be his bedroom window and taps on it and when she doesn’t get a response, She just walks into the house.

I guess it’s unlocked. Goes up the stairs. I loved how this little, uh, one story ranch house suddenly got an extra story on it after she went inside. This house looks twice as big on the inside and has an extra story. But anyway, she goes up the stairs and mama comes out. Bubba’s mom. And it’s like, what are you doing here, sweetheart?

She’s like, oh, I’m looking for Bubba. And she’s like, oh, did nobody tell you? And then she says, Baba, Baba has gone away. Like, where did he go? Well, he’s gone somewhere where nobody’s going to hurt him anymore. Well, we need to find him. Oh my God, dude. This was just really upsetting to me. Well, and

Craig: she, I think she runs out.

She’s like, I know the places where he hides and she runs out into the field and the mom chases her. And when the mom finds her, the girl’s like, don’t worry. Bubba’s not gone. He’s just being silly. He’s playing the hiding

Todd: game. Yes. She’s sitting at the foot of the cross of that scarecrow, which I guess they left up and picking flowers.

In the middle of the night. I hahahahaha Anyway, it’s creepy. And you’re like, wait a minute. Okay, now are we creepy ghost bubba? You know, with the creepy girl now, who’s like friends with the ghost? So it adds that element in there. At least she’s fine now. So that’s the Okay, so there’s a scarecrow at Harliss place, and he falls in the wood chipper, and instead of seeing blood splatter, we get a plop of preserves on, uh, Otis plate at the boarding house.

Craig: And I like, honestly, I don’t usually read stuff about these movies beforehand, maybe the brief plot summary, but I do often look at the cast to see if I’m going to recognize people and the woman who is the the boarding house lady. Is played by large Marge Alice none yes and I pretty sure that her profile picture on imdb is large Marge that is just one of my favorite childhood memories when I was so young and watching peewee’s playhouse I really thought.

That that part of that movie was so scary, not like I was scared by it, but I just loved it because I was like, Here is the scary part. Large Marge holds a very dear place in my heart. So I was happy to see her for three seconds. That she’s in this movie.

Todd: We’ve talked about her previously on here. She was Mrs.

Callahan in The Fury. She was also in Trick or Treat. You remember that rock and roller ghost story? Where at the end he gets all electric and stuff? I remember the

Craig: movie. I don’t remember her in it. God, we’ve got so many 400 plus episodes. I have no recollection of it at all. Okay. So, but so then, you know, the guys like get together and they’re nervous and you know, what’s going on.

The next one to go is Philby. He works at a grain factory. He sees the scarecrow. He tells them the other guys, he tries to show them, but it’s gone. Then he’s at the grain factory at night, and he, he hears something, and then it turns out to be nothing, but then he sees like a dark figure going into the office or something, and he tries to drive away, but his car won’t start, and he’s having, like, heart problems, so he’s taking his nitrous pills, and, Yeah, the car won’t start.

So he gets out and he runs and he thinks somebody’s following him. So he locks himself in a grain bin. And I knew immediately, like, Oh God, good job, dummy. Like he locks himself in the bottom of a grain silo. And then he tries to get out, and then the grain starts pouring in, and he gets covered in grain and killed.

Okay, now, first of all, things like this certainly can happen, and it does happen. Yeah, it does. People die.

Todd: They usually fall in if they

Craig: Yeah. The next day, or whenever it is that Otis finds out that he’s dead, They say that he died of a heart attack. God,

Todd: that was so stupid. And unnecessary. Why did they say that?

Craig: They find him buried in the silo, with his arm outstretched towards the heavens, and his hand sticking out. And they’re like, uh, it’s probably a heart

Todd: attack.

Well they do say, first it was the heart attack, then it was the grain. As though they can know these things, you know. Oh my god. Yeah, but didn’t you know? Just like he was cleaning the wood chipper, the minute I saw that guy at that grain silo, I thought someone’s gonna fall into this grain silo. That’s exactly what’s gonna happen.

Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but it was. That’s why it surprised

Craig: me when the third guy, the last guy, except for Otis, Is a mechanic and you see him rolling out from under cars several times. And I know he was going to get crushed under a car.

Todd: I did too. And you know what? That could have been the way it eventually went.

If other things didn’t happen, right? You know, there’s another thing we’re missing here though. And that is that as, and before all this is happening, the guys are trying to figure out who it is. They’re like, well, it can’t be Sam, because Sam seemed awfully disturbed after the first guy was killed, you know, it’s not like he would kill this guy, and he doesn’t, you know, he’s not showing anything on his face, and so they’re like, it must be Mrs.

Ritter, and so, instead of just going and, he kind of, kind of confronts her, this is when Otis goes to the door And is like, being real weird with her, delivering her mail, but he’s like, a little bit threatening, he’s like, you know what, you got one, that means we’re even, you can stop now. And she was like,

Craig: f you.

Yeah.

Todd: As she should, and that’s, and then she, he’s like, what did you say, what was that thing you said earlier? And she’s like, there’s justice besides the law, right? So then you’re thinking, maybe, okay, it’s gotta be somebody, right, doing these things. Right. But then the girl’s acting real creepy like she’s got a ghost friend.

Otis is all

Craig: paranoid. He confronts her. He was so He confronts her in such a creepy way. Like at the Halloween dance. Everybody’s at the Halloween dance, and the kids are like playing hide and seek, and Mary Lee ends up by herself, and Otis confronts her and is like,

Clip: Hey, you’re not afraid of me. I’m the mailman.

No one’s afraid of the mailman. Let me see your costume. Isn’t that pretty? Let me see if I can guess who you are. Uh, fairy princess, right? No, no, that’s not it. I know who it is. Mommy, right? Huh?

Show your costume to Mrs. Ritter? Hmm? She’s your friend, isn’t she? Yeah, sure. She’s mine, too. Bet you didn’t know that, did you? Huh? You know something? I think Mrs. Ritter’s trying to play a joke on me and some of my friends.

Craig: What did she tell you? Just, oh, it’s a secret? Oh, that’s okay, just whisper it in my ear.

You can whisper it in my ear, I won’t tell anybody, it’ll still be a secret. When he had confronted Bubba’s mom at her screen door on her porch, under the guise of being her postman, That bothered me, too. My grandpa was a United States postal worker for like 50 years, and he took a lot of pride in his work, and they are good social public servants.

They’re not creepos. Let this not be a stain

Todd: upon the Postal Service. As prominent as Postmen and the U. S. Postal Service in general and its logo and its trucks and its uniforms are in this movie. This does not reflect upon them yet, but the mom

Craig: had said to him, I’ve seen the way that you look at that little girl and he was obviously taken aback.

Like, yeah, there was something to feel guilty about. And so, so now he’s confronting her. She eventually talks to him. She’s silent for a long time, but she eventually She says, Bubba told me everything. And, and he says, Bubba didn’t tell you anything, Bubba’s dead. And she says, I know. And RUNS AWAY!! Ohhh, Jesus.

Ahahaha. I loved that, like, Ugh, I just, it felt like a standoff between them. It’s so uncomfortable because of the power dynamic. Not only is he an adult man, but he clearly has some authority in this community. And she is just, you know, she is, she’s nothing, she has nothing, she’s a child. But when she came back at him with a, I know, it was like, right away.

And then I also liked that she ran around the corner and he was chasing her, and I think a cop stopped him and was like, What are you doing?

Todd: Party’s back there. Yeah.

Craig: And I kinda liked that tiny, and it’s the only one, but that tiny suggestion that somebody finally Was looking at this guy like what are you doing?

Todd: There’s just this hint that there is some authority here. You know, that it’s above this guy He can be put in his place and I love how these two women Absolutely every time put him in his place and stand up to him But he seems convinced that the woman is behind it And so we get this long evening thing where the woman is at home and she puts some tea cattle on the stove And she goes to start her knitting, and I, I jumped, Han comes out from behind her, her rocking chair, and goes around her mouth, and it’s, I mean, there’s no question that it’s, that it’s Otis.

And, uh, he starts threatening her, and he says, I know that you’re doing this, now you’ve got two, And, uh, there better not be a third, yadda yadda yadda yadda, and, uh, when he moves his hand away from her mouth, she has had a heart attack.

Craig: Heh, that was weird. I could see the moment when it happened, like, the actress Yeah, it was there.

The actress acted it, like, Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh. Something in her eyes, like, Shifted, and I could see, oh, something just happened, but at the same time I was thinking, are you serious? I know, I always hate this. Did she just like, did she just have a stroke and die? Like, cause he takes his hand off her mouth and moves around in front of her and then just realizes that she’s dead.

He scared her to death.

Todd: Which is always hokey in movies. For a brief moment, I thought maybe you’d suffocated her and I was like, okay, that could be cool. But no. No. She just was scared to death. That was disappointing. But this asshole, as he is leaving, looks at the kettle on the stove and reali gets his plan.

And so he basically, uh I like I like that

Craig: because the as he’s walking out, The kettle starts screaming and it’s a jump scare. It scares him. It didn’t scare me, but it startled me. And that’s what gives him the idea. He takes the tea kettle off and turns the gas off and then hesitates and turns it back on.

I also don’t, this doesn’t ring true to me. Like if you have a burning fire and your fireplace and the gas gets turned on, will your house explode as though. A ton of TNT was in there. A nuclear weapon dropped on it. That was like,

Todd: that was literally a mushroom cloud.

It’s true folks. It was a mushroom cloud. The TV movies got to use stock footage, I guess, you know, they were each way back into the world war two archives. And also all of the nice things that I said about the production of the movie kind of go out the window when you see the charred remains of this house the next day, which looks like.

Just a handful of flats that have been kind of cut up a little bit and had black paint sprayed all over him. Oh, God. But anyway, now that she’s

Craig: dead, and I think that he believes that she had nothing to do with it, he’s convinced that it must be Bubba, that he wasn’t really dead, and even though they shot him 27 times, he’s convinced, so he goes and gets the last remaining guy, Skeeter.

And they go to dig him up and this is in the middle of the night. They shot all of the night scenes night for night. And I’m impressed by that because it’s hard and, uh, it looks good. It looks great. Yeah, it looks really good. But so they go and they dig up his grave and you don’t, again, you don’t see anything, but when Skeeter opens it, he’s still in there.

So Skeeter freaks out. And at this point, this is why I felt a little bad for him because he seems very childlike too. He’s very scared and he’s crying and it seems like he never wanted to be messed up in all of this, and he just wants to go to the police and confess.

Todd: Is a bit of a trope in these movies, isn’t it?

There’s always a slower guy who is part of the group, who didn’t quite want to go along with it, but ended up doing it, but is haunted by it a little bit, but will still kind of go along with everything at the end. Until this point where he completely freaks out. I mean, that’s in, uh. I spit on your grave is like that.

I spit on your grave, we just did Last House on the Left, had that in there. Yeah. Um, it’s, it’s not uncommon at all.

Craig: Yeah, so, I mean, he did it, but you kind of feel bad for him, but, and then you also feel bad for him because Otis is obviously manipulating him and gets him to go back to the grave. He’s like, okay, we’ll go to the cops, but first we have to go, And cover up the grave.

We can’t leave it open like that. And so Skeeter gets down in the grave. I mean, I saw it, it was projected. I saw it a mile away. Otis takes the shovel and kills him. I did think it was a like chef’s kiss touch that he hits the guy over the head. And this guy has been wearing a really distinctive hat the whole movie.

Like a red and white polka dot hat that I had noticed every time he was wearing it. And Otis hits him over the head with the shovel and he pulls the shovel back and the hat is stuck to the shovel.

Todd: That was such a smart and clever way of doing the violence and putting a little hint of it in. You know, it’s almost like the blood spray on the walls, but way more sophisticated, you know?

To do this in this TV movie, it was like, they were re He was really trying to find ways to really get the impact across without, you know, while staying within the bounds of the censorship. I was. Really impressed with that bit. And he disdainfully yanks it off and chucks it in there. What a dick, this guy.

He’s terrible. I cannot wait for this man to die.

Craig: And then he drives away and he’s drunk. And he just happens to stumble upon Mary Lee in the middle of the road. And she runs off. And he chases her in the dirt. Post office jeep, and he catches up to her, and she’s in a pumpkin patch.

Todd: There’s a little more Halloween for ya.

And he starts to accuse her. He’s like, I know what you did. And then, a noise fires up behind him, and some lights, and there is a piece of machinery. Now, it’s like a plow with a It’s a

Craig: bulldozer slash Yeah, I don’t think they have these things. It’s like a mullet. It’s like, it’s like bulldozer in the back, or bulldozer in the front, tiller in the back.

Todd: Maybe, maybe I’m ignorant though. Maybe this is something very specific for harvesting pumpkins or something. It seems very practical. I’m not going to go

Craig: on record. I don’t know. But it, it comes on supernaturally, and then it chases it, and it’s also unlike any, I don’t know if bulldozer is the right word, but it’s got, you know, like a scoop.

I don’t know. In the front, but the scoop also has tines, a jaw. It’s like a jaw that closes down, chases them like chomping its jaws. Yeah, I liked it at the same time. You know, I’m like, I don’t know. The guy running, I’m like, turn to

Todd: the right. I don’t know. I think he was drunk and he was scared. This is what I was thinking.

He was drunk and he’s scared. And he does in this pumpkin patch is probably muddy. It’s very, there’s lots of things to trip over. God knows he does. They remind us every other shot that this thing is churning up pumpkins behind it. And I think it’s teasing us. It’s trying to make us think that he’s going to get.

Chomped with this thing and or and or run over by that thing and it’s very smart It’s so much better.

Craig: Yeah, this was great. This was so great It’s chasing him and you’re absolutely positive that’s gonna catch him It’s either gonna catch him in its jaws and then you’re right and then also probably run over him and chop him up But it doesn’t at all.

It’s just chasing him, and he’s looking back at it, and he turns around, and he runs right into the scarecrow.

Todd: Yes, with a pitchfork sticking straight out.

Craig: You don’t know that right away. You know, like, he just runs into it, and they’re face to face, and he looks at it, but then he backs up, and you hear kind of a Squishy sound.

But

Todd: you heard a little bit of that, that sound when he ran into it. I mean, that was the first thing I thought of. I was like, Oh my God. I let out an audible gasp when that happened. A, it was a big surprise. And B, like the poetic justice of it was just on point.

Craig: Yes. Yes. I loved it. I loved it. I wanted him to die so badly.

And I thought that the way that he did was perfect. Face to face. With

Todd: the scarecrow. I loved it. Oh, man. So, it appears that this girl set all this up somehow. And yet, we could see very clearly that the plow went on supernaturally. Yeah. Like, there was a shot of the inside of that. With the thing moving forward.

I read

Craig: that that was not in the original cut. That’s like a really one or one or two second cut that they put in with one of the DVD releases. I read that in the trivia, so I was, I noticed it that you see it. Shit. I wish they had left it out by itself. I know. Shit, I wish they had kept it out. It’s true, but.

How else are you going to explain how these things turned themselves off and on? Like, was there somebody behind the scenes? Was Bubba, like, as a spirit or whatever, actually doing these things? I don’t know. And ultimately, I feel like it doesn’t matter. I was really surprised by the end. And

Todd: yes, yeah,

Craig: really surprised.

I didn’t expect this because the whole movie had made it so ambiguous up until this point. You could walk away thinking it’s kind of a mystery. What really happened, but then the scarecrow,

Todd: the girl loves up. It looks up at the scarecrow and the scarecrow turns its head down with its big open black eyes and mouth.

That was creepy as hell.

Craig: Yes. And it was so creepy. And she says, thank you, Bubba. Tomorrow I’ll teach you a new game. The chasing game. Yes!

Todd: Wow. And she hands it a flower, which it takes, and there’s a freeze frame on that. Wow. I loved it. So, the spirit of the scarecrow, or the spirit of Bubba, or, what is it? I still am not 100 percent certain, and I also think, I It’s possible that you could argue that the girl did this, except for the fact that, you know, we saw that one shot where the thing moved by itself.

I mean, the girl kind of disappears at some point. She could have hopped in the, the plow, you know, and started it up and moved it towards him.

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know.

Todd: Or had an accomplice, you know, I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, it’s not as ambiguous. Could

Craig: be. But that’s the thing, that’s, that’s why I likened it to Pumpkinhead.

Because I do think that it is Bubba, but it’s also, you know, some kind of, like, supernatural vengeance thing, like, he’s there to avenge the real wrong. Bubba was a sweet, kind, gentle person. I don’t think that he wasn’t violent, he didn’t have violent tendencies, so, I mean, you know, it’s a movie, it’s a dumb, it’s a dumb, it’s that same kind of thing.

It’s But ghost stories do that all the

Todd: time, though.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Where this person who was kind of innocent and wrongfully killed, who you wouldn’t imagine could kill anybody else, the spirit of them comes back and exacts like a horrific revenge on everybody else. You know, it doesn’t feel like that person anymore, right?

It feels like Right. Vengeful spirit, you know? Yeah.

Craig: The, yeah. Vengeful spirits all the time. We see it all the time. The, the one that just popped into my mind was Monster House. Oh, right. Yeah. That, that guy’s wife died and she just became a vengeful spirit. Yeah. Anyway, but I, I won’t say that I loved the movie, but I’m glad to have finally seen it.

Like you said, it’s been recommended so many times and I’m, I’m not really sure why I haven’t just watched it before, but I’m glad to finally have. I think it’s definitely 100 percent if you haven’t seen it, it is so worth the watch. So many familiar actors in it. It’s an interesting story and it’s well done.

I don’t think it’s great. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece. It’s not going to become like a Halloween tradition for me, but it was fun to see it for the first time. I can’t say it wasn’t a good time. It was a good time.

Todd: In many ways. It’s a very typical story. Like there’s nothing. Particularly different, you know, this is like a whole class of movies, like you said earlier, like, it’s a Tales from the Crypt kind of movie, it’s like a Twilight Zone kind of movie, it’s frickin House on Sorority Row, or Killing Mrs.

Tingle, or like, whatever, you know, where, where somebody gets killed. And the other people either get away with it, or cover it up, or don’t talk about it. And then, slowly but surely, this vengeful spirit or whatever, that’s a big mystery, is coming back to take its vengeance on each and every one of them until they’re all gone.

In that respect, it’s it’s nothing new, but I just thought it had elements in there that elevated it a little bit. I thought that it really tugged at the heartstrings more than I expected to. I really like that ambiguity of it up to the very end. I thought that the fact that the Scarecrow moved his head I mean, you know, we never saw the Scarecrow move.

We didn’t see, like, a trail of straw. You know, there was none, there were none of these things to hint that the Scarecrow was anything but just a thing that somebody could have propped up in any one of their yards and taken away or whatnot, who just kind of knew what was going on. And so, that really caught me off guard, and that was really eerie, that image of that scarecrow just suddenly turning down.

So, it just had these bits in it that really elevated it for me. But, because it’s this kind of movie, because so much of the movie hinges on, it’s really just this drama as to how is this unfolding and what is the mystery. Once you’ve seen it once, there aren’t a lot of compelling reasons to see it again, maybe.

Unless you’re showing it to somebody else, you know? It’s just not Emotionally, it’s not gonna be quite the same, so. Yeah. Oh, I totally recommend it, just like you. Love the movie. Perfect for Halloween. Absolutely perfect. Yes, yeah, great. You know what I learned, just kind of random fact, is that, uh, Oh, do you know Simon Barrett?

He’s a screenwriter. He, uh, He worked on the new Blair Witch, the Blair Witch, what do you call it, remake that came out or whatever, and he, He’s a co writer or writer of a lot of stuff like that Adam Wingard and Ty West do. He wrote You’re Next, He wrote a lot of the VHS series, and he wrote The Guest. Some of these movies we’ve really, really loved, and he was the screenplay and story guy for Godzilla vs.

King Kong, The New Empire, that just came out. He went on record saying that this is one of his two absolute favorite Halloween movies, and that it’s a shame that more people haven’t heard of it, more people haven’t seen it, because he just finds them really unique, and Stand out for like, you know, television movies.

They’re just a little more weird. He says, I just want to quote this. There was a streak where TV movies were kind of dangerous. After Spielberg did Duel, Don’t Go to Sleep is a ghost story with a little girl ghost. Dark Knight of the Scarecrow is like a creepy Scarecrow revenge movie, kind of a weird of mice and men, but with a scary supernatural Scarecrow.

They’re both really creepy and unnerving, and they are my go to creepy, spooky Halloween movies. I I so feel that, like, I

Craig: loved TV movies! They were events! Back in the day, you know, there would be tons of buildup, tons of advertising. And then I know we’ve talked about this before, but you would watch them and they were episodic.

You know, it would be over like four nights or something. And sometimes you would watch two hours, four nights in a row. Yeah. You would really invest in them, and then you would talk about them with people the next day.

Todd: Yeah, you’d have to wait for the next episode, right? You couldn’t just binge it all at once.

And we all knew they were gonna be a little tamer than the movies we saw. We all knew that the production value would be a bit lower and stuff, but then it came along and proved to all of us that holy shit, TV movies could actually be pretty scary.

Craig: There have been other ones. There were so many. There were Stephen King ones.

They did The Shining. There was, uh, Rose Red. Rose Red? Is that what that was called? That was a good one. There was one about a hospital

Todd: starring Andrew McCarthy. Some of those that you rattle off, those were later, you know what I mean? Those were later television I’m thinking like 70s and 80s, you know, when we were growing up.

But this is one of them. We never gave them enough credit for going that far, you know, as movies could go. So they were always sort of second fiddle. In my mind. And yet, we’ve already talked about several TV movies that scared the heck out of us. I mean, The Salem’s Lot was one when I was a kid anyway that scared me.

It, you know, we revisited It, and we were like, okay, it doesn’t really hold up as well as our memories did, but all of us, adults and kids alone, at the time, were freaking out over that movie. And it’s still, it’s still unsettling. Put this one in there, yeah. Other movies we’ve seen might as well have been kids TV movies, right?

I think The Lady in White was one of them.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: You know, a lot of them we said, you know, this almost plays out like a TV movie. It just wasn’t. Yeah, it’s worth

Craig: it. Don’t let the fact that it’s a TV movie turn you off. In fact, I think it’s really interesting to watch these kind of movies and see how they can still tell a really good story.

And a scary story. I wasn’t scared by it, but it’s a scary story without all the violence and gore. It can be done. There are some people who are turned away from horror because they don’t like all of the violence and gore. It’s not like they don’t like a suspenseful story. They just don’t have the stomach for all of that.

And this would be something that would be great for somebody like that. Yeah. You want to watch a Halloween movie cause it’s the spooky season. You want to watch something spooky, but you don’t want a lot of blood and violence and gore. This is great. I recommend it a hundred percent.

Todd: Same here. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode.

If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Here we are at Halloween season, why don’t you go to our website, or one of our, like our Facebook page, our Instagram, post up there what your favorite Halloween movies are and we can chat there. We’re certainly having these conversations back with the patrons at patreon.

com slash Chainsaw Horror. If you’d like to support the podcast, please go over there, consider signing up and becoming a member, the crew, and get access to all kinds of great features, minisows, we’re gonna have a couple Halloween minisows this month, you’re gonna love those. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.

With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

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