DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW 2 – Review by Rob Freese  VideoScope #117 SPRING 2022

Horror Debut

DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW 2 (2022)

D: J.D. Feigelson. Amber Wedding, Carol Dines, Adam Snyder, Tim Gooch, Aiden Shurr, Richard Seng, Bill Morley, Mike Van Zant, James Hamblin. 84 mins. (VCI Entertainment) 5/22

Chris Rhymer (Wedding) moves to a small town in Kentucky with her son Jeremy (Shurr) and is a mystery to the locals, especially to super jerk Deputy Turney (Hamblin). Chris works during the day, so after school Jeremy spends time with neighbor Hilda Corvis (Dines). Hilda visits the grave of her long-deceased cousin Charles “Bubba” Ritter every day and one day encounters a threatening man. When local farmer Bill Spoole (Morley) is killed, police are on the hunt for town weirdo Shrevie Nickson (Van Zant), who was the last person to see the farmer alive. He also saw exactly who killed Spoole. Chris hears a man’s voice coming from Jeremy’s room and the boy gets defensive when she asks him about it. The local sheriff is attracted to Chris, but she keeps him at a distance. When Chris begins asking about a string of strange deaths that occurred in the town 40 years before, she is pointed in the direction of Hilda. Picking up Jeremy one afternoon, she finds Hilda showing him how to make a scarecrow effigy out of cornhusks. The strange deaths begin anew as Chris realizes her young son is a part of something she does not understand. Things only go from bad to worse when criminal Harold Vance (Gooch) arrives in town and starts digging shallow graves out in the cornfield.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2 comes 41 years after the original and is a worthy sequel that pays tribute to the 1981film while expanding on its premise. Feigelson delivers a stand-alone story that works even if you’re not familiar with the original. Feigelson has done an outstanding job revisiting his scarecrow character, having written the script over the course of several years while he traveled, meeting fans of the original, and crafting a script based on their feedback. The cast does a fine job, with Hamblin perfect as the creep deputy and Van Zant even slightly resembling Larry Drake from the original. Wedding does well as the single mom and her finest moment comes when she has to deal with her past returning to haunt her. In this scene, Feigelson filmed Wedding in the extreme foreground and the expressions of pain on her face are heartbreaking. Like the original, the sequel is a morality play, and Feigelson delivers many surprises along the way. This is a film that works well the second time you watch it, as you pick up on all the subtleties in the seemingly simply but layered story.VCI also offers the original Dark Night of the Scarecrow on DVD and Blu-ray. _

–Rob Freese

   VideoScope # 117 SPRING 2022