The Best Scarecrow Horror Movies For When You Can't Wait For Fall
There are certain things that just scream autumn, and the beginning of spooky season, like the leaves changing colors, pumpkin spice lattes, and cornfields with scarecrows. There are more scarecrow horror movies than you might think, whether that be a movie about scarecrows, or one featuring a memorable scene with scarecrows.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a great example, seeing as the scarecrow Harold is definitely one of the scariest characters from the book series, as well as the 2019 film. Harold acts as a punching bag for Tommy (Austin Abrams), until one day he decides not to take it anymore, and turns his abuser into a scarecrow, just like him. Batman Begins features a horrifying scarecrow played by Cillian Murphy, who wants to create mass hysteria by unleashing a fear-inducing hallucinogen into Gotham's water supply. The list also features eighties B movies, like Dark Night of the Scarecrow and Scarecrows.
1. Trick 'r Treat
Sam from Michael Dougherty's Trick 'r Treat isn't necessarily a scarecrow, though he does have a burlap sack over his head that seems to be stuffed with something like hay, just like a typical scarecrow. There's also imagery of him in a pumpkin patch, looking like other pumpkin scarecrows in the field.This trick-or-treating little demon (played by Quinn Lord) is named Sam, like the pagan celebration of Halloween, Samhain. His job is to enforce the four main rules of Halloween, and he takes it deadly serious.
2. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Harold is one of the creepiest characters from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and he doesn't get any less frightening in the live action version from André Øvredal and Guillermo del Toro. In both instances, the owners of Harold the scarecrow mock him, kick him, and curse at him, until he gets his revenge. In the live-action film, released in 2019, Harold gives his abuser a taste of his own medicine by turning him into a scarecrow stuffed with hay.
3. Dark Night of the Scarecrow
Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a made-for-television horror movie from 1981. The gorefest is full of deceit, betrayal, and a massive cover-up. Unfortunately for the twisted townspeople of the Deep South, dead doesn't always mean gone. Bubba is going to get his revenge, whether it be with the pitchfork that had been used against him, or from a bizarre and wildly violent "accident," like a man losing his footing, and falling off of the loft of his barn and into a wood chipper.
4. Scarecrow
Scarecrow is a 2013 Syfy Pictures horror film, featuring Mean Girls' Lacey Chabert, Robin Dunne, and Nicole Muñoz. The movie is about a local legend in which a scarecrow was buried to prevent it from killing a local family to avenge a vendetta. There is even a spooky rhyme about the scarecrow, which goes, "It never sleeps, it never dies, it can't be stopped, hear their cries. The Scarecrow lives to kill us all. Keep it buried in the fall..."
5. Pearl
Pearl is Ti West's origin story for the X character of the same name, played by Mia Goth. The movie follows Pearl as her desperation to become a movie star leads her to commit a number of violent crimes on her family's Texas homestead (that the film crew visits in X) in 1918. One of the more memorable scenes in the film comes when a bored and lonely Pearl has an intimate moment with a scarecrow in a cornfield. She dances with the scarecrow, and kisses it, envisioning the projectionist (David Corenswet) from her local movie theater all the while.
6. Kakashi
Kakashi is a 2001 Japanese horror film based on a Junji Ito manga of the same name. In the film, Kakashi is a ritual where humans burn animal and human hair to keep evil spirits at bay. That turned into people burning effigies of humans in order to attract the spirits of the dead, so they could interact with them. This practice doesn't work out so well for Kaoru (Maho Nonami), who ends getting attacked by living scarecrows while searching for her brother in the small (and very creepy) Kozukata Village during their Scarecrow Festival.
7. Scarecrows
There is a lot going on in the 1988 horror film Scarecrows, written, directed, and produced by William Wesley. It follows five mercenaries and war criminals who steal three million dollars from a military base, and take a pilot and his daughter hostage. One of them tries to parachute out of the plane with the loot all for himself, but instead falls into field with scarecrows and graves. There, the entire group are hunted by homicidal scarecrows believed to be possessed by the spirits of deceased Satanic farmers.
8. Batman Begins
The Scarecrow - Dr. Jonathan Crane - is an infamous Batman villain played to terrifiyng affect by Cillian Murphy in the 2005 Christopher Nolan film, Batman Begins. He works with Batman's adversary, Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson), to introduce a fear-inducing hallucinogen into Gotham's water supply. The end goal is to cause mass hysteria and destroy Gotham city. This is one of the few scarecrow movies in which the item usually found in corn fields is trying to destroy a metropolis.
9. Annabelle: Creation
Annabelle: Creation isn't specifically about scarecrows. However, one of the scariest scenes in the movie involves one of the creepiest scarecrows you've ever seen, slowly beginning to animate so it can go after a scared, young orphan named Carol (Grace Fulton). While the girls are desperately trying to escape Annabelle, Carol gets separated from the others, and locked in the barn by herself. She watches in horror as the lightbulbs in the barn unscrew themselves one by one, until she is plunged into darkness just as the terrifying scarecrow comes to life.
10. Messengers 2: The Scarecrow
Messengers 2: The Scarecrow is a bonkers sequel that features a homicidal scarecrow, a curse, ghosts, and even voodoo. It follows down-on-his-luck farmer John Rollins, played by Norman Reedus, who inadvertantly enacts a curse when he sets up a strange scarecrow in his field to try to scare away crows. After he places the scarecrow, his luck on the farm seems to change, as his crops finally start to grow. However, the consequences on the rest of his life are dire.
11. Husk
Husk, from Brett Simmons, is a brutal horror movie involving murderous scarecrows and possession. It all begins when Chris (C. J. Thomason), Scott (Devon Graye), Johnny (Ben Easter), Brian (Wes Chatham), and Natalie (Tammin Sursok) crash their car after it is attacked by crows. When they wake up, Johnny is gone, and their fates are pretty much sealed then, as they all start going through the cursed cornfield. Scott has hallucinations of a man killing his brother with a pitchfork, which is suggested to be why the scarecrows are attacking them and taking over their bodies.
12. Scarecrows
In the 2017 horror film Scarecrows, the monster is actually quite human, and it's the victims that are turned into human scarecrows. The movie follows Ash (Hannah Gordon), Farbsie (Mike Taylor), Ely (Umed Amin), and Devon (Maaor Ziv), a group of friends who set out for a nice weekend getaway, but end up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, where they get kidnapped and brutally taken out by a crazed farmer. The movie is co-written and directed by Stuart Stone.
13. They Live Inside Us
Not unlike the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark film, also on this list, They Live Inside Us is about telling spooky stories. Jake (James Morris) is a writer struggling with writer's block, so he rents a house in his hometown that is said to be haunted. He uses the place for inspiration, and as he writes each story, it begins to come to life for the audience. He chooses some buzz words to inspire his spooky screenplays, with monsters like clowns, and, of course, scarecrows. The movie also pays homage to classic 80s horror movies like Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Sleepaway Camp.
This article was originally published on Ranker.com.
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